lHt.hr 


\ 


n. 


BV    45J5    .363  T9(J3 
Smith,    John. 

Christian  character   as   a 
social  power 


CHRISTIAN    CHARACTER 
AS   A   SOCIAL   POWER 


CHRISTIAN    CHARACTER 
AS  A  SOCIAL  POWER 


BY  THE  REV. 

JOHN   SMITH,  D.D. 


EDINBURGH 


CINCINNATI 
JENNINGS    AND    PYE 

LONDON 
HODDER    AND    STOUGHTON 


Edinbiirgli  :  Printed  by  T.  and  A.  CoNSTAUl 


PREFACE 

This  book  is  offered  as  an  individual  study,  from 
the  side  of  religion,  of  one  important  factor  in  a 
great  problem.  Several  years  ago  the  thoughts 
here  expressed  were  outlined  in  an  address  to  a 
national  gathering  of  young  men.  Subsequently, 
in  a  series  of  leading  articles  contributed  to  a 
weekly  religious  journal,  a  considerable  portion 
of  the  second  part  was  covered.  The  writer's 
concern  is  to  establish  the  truth  contained  in  the 
earlier  section  ;  and  in  the  chapters  which  follow, 
he  simply  illustrates  from  reading  and  observa- 
tion, without  any  attempt  at  express  research, 
the  principles  previously  enunciated. 


CONTENTS 

PART     I 

THE   PREPARATION   FOR  SERVICE 

CHAP.  PAGE 

I.  INTRODUCTION  .  .  .  .  .3 

II.  THE     CHRISTIAN     PERSONALITY     IN    TRAINING     FOR 

SERVICE        .  .  .  .  .  '13 

III.  THE   IMITATION   OF   CHRIST  AS  A  SOCIAL   DISCIPLINE       3I 

IV.  THE    SOCIAL    POTENCIES    OF    THE    CHRISTIAN    CHAR- 

ACTER .  .  .  .  .  .46 

V.    THE   SPHERES    OF   SOCIAL   DUTY  .  .  .62 

PART     II 

CHRISTIAN   CHARACTER  AT  WORK   IN  THE 
SOCIAL  SPHERES 

I.    THE   ORIGINALITY   OF   THIS    INFLUENCE  .  .         85 

II.  THE   CHRISTIAN    IDEA   OF   TRUTH         .  .  .       lOI 

III.  THE   CHRISTIAN   SENSE   OF    HONOUR    .  .  .112 

IV.  THE   CHRISTIAN   DOCTRINE  OF   SOCIAL   RIGHTS  .      I26 

vii 


viii  CONTENTS 

CHAP.  PAGE 

V.    PURITY  .  .  .  .  .  .143 

VI.    CHRISTIAN   /ESTHETICS                 ....  I56 

VII.    THE   CHRISTIAN    WORTH    OF    REPUTATION         .                 .  I7l 

VIII.    THE      WORLD-OUTLOOK     OF     THE     CHRISTIAN      PER- 
SONALITY     ......  186 

IX.  THE     AFFINITY     OF     THE     CHRISTIAN     PERSONALITY 

WITH   HUMAN   IDEALS           ....  207 

X.  EPILOGUE                ......  226 


PART    I 
THE   PREPARATION    FOR   SERVICE 


CHAPTER    I 

INTRODUCTION 

There  is  a  paradox  which  every  Christian  gen- 
eration discovers  afresh — the  permanence,  and 
the  ceaseless  progress  of  Divine  Truth.  The 
content  of  revelation  abides  unchanged,  as  it 
came  down  from  apostolic  times.  But  there  is 
ceaseless  progress  in  the  realisation  of  what 
Christ  has  once  for  all  given. 

The  law  of  progress,  the  way  in  which  from 
generation  to  generation  truth  grows  within  the 
Kingdom  of  Christ,  may  be  described  thus. 
First,  we  live  our  new  germinal  conceptions, 
and  then  we  formulate  them.  The  Spirit  of 
God,  who  moves  in  the  Church,  helping  us  to 
meet  the  ever-fresh  emergencies  of  the  new 
day,  guides  us  into  fresh  aspects,  impressions, 
convictions,  rising  out  of  the  one  substance  of 
revelation.  Then  when  these,  reflecting  with 
added  emphasis  the  mind  of  God  in  His  word, 
are   practically  wrought    into  the    life   and  acti- 


4  INTRODUCTION 

vities  of  the  Church,  they  crystallise  into  definite 
opinion  and  become  a  further  increment  of  truth 
in  the  Church's  testimony. 

Let  us  apply  this  thought,  capable  of  wide 
application,  to  the  subject  in  hand.  From  many 
points,  under  pressure  of  practical  needs,  we  are 
being  guided  into  new  conceptions  of  Christian- 
ity as  a  social  force.  In  her  followers,  the 
universal  Church  is  taking  up  a  very  distinctive 
ethical  and  philanthropic  attitude  in  every 
social  sphere.  The  Christian  spirit  is  a  power 
to  be  reckoned  with,  at  every  frontier  of  discus- 
sion and  controversy.  And  Christian  men  are 
seeing,  that  the  triumph  of  Christ  means  nothing 
less,  than  the  supremacy  of  the  mind  and  will 
of  Jesus,  over  all  the  thoughts,  institutions,  and 
activities  of  men. 

While,  however,  we  have  these  and  such-like 
dominant  convictions,  manifestly  owing  to  the 
presence  of  a  spirit  higher  than  that  of  man,  they 
have  not  yet  crystallised  into  a  generally  received 
system  of  opinion  or  doctrine.  Especially  is  there 
far  from  universal  agreement,  as  to  the  relation 
of  this  social  doctrine,  to  redemption  and  the 
Christian  system  generally.  We  are  in  a  day 
of  broken  lights  and  one-sided  views.     Men  are 


INTRODUCTION  5 

distinguishing  things  which  do  not  differ.  They 
are  opposing  to  each  other,  aspects  of  truth  which, 
rightly  conceived,  are  supplementary.  Vague  in 
their  own  thinking,  they  are  creating  a  vague 
impression  that  we  must  shift  the  centre  of 
gravity  in  the  Christian  system,  ceasing,  in  our 
concern  for  society  and  social  amelioration,  to  be 
principally  occupied  with  the  pardon,  renewal,  ^ 
and  life  in  God  of  the  individual  soul. 

The  aim  of  this  small  volume  is  to  illustrate 
this  relation,  to  show  how  Christianity  comes  to 
have  a  social  influence,  and  at  what  points  and 
in  what  form  this  social  force  is  exerted.  Tracing 
thus  to  the  fountain-head,  all  the  streams  of 
potency  which  it  has  set  flowing  in  the  public 
life  of  the  world,  we  can  see,  not  only  the  source 
and  the  primitive  impulses  which  have  set  them 
in  motion,  but  their  spiritual  quality,  which 
marks  them  off  from  all  other  forces  at  work 
among  men. 

Should  we  succeed  in  our  endeavour,  we  shall 
have  made  a  contribution  to  intellectual  clear- 
ness in  this  fertile  and  interesting  region  of  truth. 
We  shall  incidentally  have  answered  and  over- 
thrown those  imperfect  views,  to  which  reference 
has  been  made,  by  discovering   in    the  renewed 


6  INTRODUCTION 

consciousness,  and  in  the  springs  of  the  new  life, 
the  origin  of  all  those  social  qualities  and  impulses, 
which  have  redeemed  from  pagan  vice,  and  re- 
constituted on  nobler  lines,  and  revived  again 
and  again,  civilised  society.  And  methinks  we 
shall,  in  deep  humility  of  soul,  win  a  new  faith  in 
the  power  of  the  Christian  Church,  more  largely 
receptive  of  the  influence  of  its  Head,  to  carry 
unspeakably  further  the  moral  and  spiritual 
elevation  of  mankind. 

Mr.  Benjamin  Kidd,  in  that  remarkable  book. 
Social  Evolution^  which  really  turned  the  edge 
of  the  agnostic  position,  makes  a  very  striking 
statement.  He  says  that  the  only  known  force 
which  has  been  able  to  bring  individual  self- 
interest  into  harmony  with  the  public  welfare 
has  been  religion,  and  religion  with  supernatural 
sanctions.  These  are  not  his  precise  words,  but 
they  contain  his  thoughts.^      And  they  lead  us 


^  Though  Mr.  Kidd's  language  is  technical,  savouring  of 
the  evolution  philosophy,  it  may  be  worth  while  quoting  his 
•law,'  which  he  ^establishes  through  his  most  significant  treatise. 
Speaking  of  the  social  system  he  says,  that  '  there  is  maintained 
within  it  a  conflict  of  two  opposing  forces  :  the  disintegrating 
principle  represented  by  the  rational  self-assertiveness  of  the 
individual  units ;  the  integrating  principle  represented  by  a 
religious  belief,  providing  a  sanction  for  social  conduct,  which  is 


INTRODUCTION  r 

to  the  point  at  which  most  profitably  we  may 
break  ground. 

There  have  been  many,  and  not  only  in  our 
own  time,  who  have  been  eager  to  exploit  Christ 
and  Christianity,  in  the  interests  of  some  specific 
social  philosophy.  And  there  are  certain  social 
aspects  and  principles,  which  may  readily  enough 
be  discerned  to  have  an  inseparable  connection 
with  the  Christian  view.  But  all  attempts,  to 
confine  within  limits  of  a  specific  school  or  theory 
the  whole  teaching  of  Christ  on  social  questions, 
have  ended  in  failure.  The  glory  of  Christianity 
is  that  it  can  come  into  all  social  and  political 
conditions,  and,  livingly  adjusting  itself  to  these, 
can  carry  on  the  moral  progress  of  the  world. 

Mr.  Kidd,  from  the  standpoint  of  science,  saw 
clear  and  far,  when  he  discerned  that  in  her 
supernatural  sanctions  lay  our  religion's  social 
power.  The  original  contribution  of  Christianity 
to  the  life  of  society  and  the  world,  was  not  a  new 
theory  of  social  relations,  but  a  new  personal 
factor.      It  created  a  new  type  of  manhood,  in 

always  of  necessity  ultra-rational,  and  the  function  of  which  is  to 
secure,  in  the  stress  of  evolution,  the  continual  subordination  of  the 
interests  of  the  individual  units  to  the  larger  interests  of  the  longer 
lived  social  organism  to  which  they  belong.' — Social  Evohi(io7i ,  104. 


8  INTRODUCTION 

this  profoundest  of  all  senses,  that  it  called  into 
being  within  man's  soul  (remaining  otherwise  the 
same,  rooted  in  the  contexture  of  race-life)  a  new 
nature,  looking  out  to  a  new  order  of  facts, 
moving  within  new  horizons,  governed  by  new 
motives.  And  from  this  nature,  related  to  God 
and  Eternity,  and  instinct  with  an  answering 
love  for  love  received,  grew  up  a  specific  char- 
acter, conforming  to  an  eternal  will,  working  to 
an  eternal  end,  seeking  an  eternal  perfection. 

As  a  quality  or  potency  of  this  redeemed  char- 
acter, every  pulse  of  social  force  in  Christianity 
primarily  exists.  This  life  in  its  proper  nature 
as  regenerate  and  redeemed,  and  in  process  of 
holy  conformity  with  the  divine,  is  the  absolutely 
regulative  element  in  this  whole  sphere.  Out  of 
this  life  comes  the  conception  of  social  relations 
which  sends  us  with  a  specific  direction  into  all 
social  spheres.  From  what  obtains  in  the  soul's 
relations  to  God,  we  get  the  master  lights,  the 
specific  principles,  which  govern  us  in  every 
social  activity.  Reaching  back  to  the  original 
plan  of  all  existence  in  the  counsel  of  God  dis- 
covered in  Christ,  the  Christian  brings  to  every 
social  question  a  height  of  motive,  a  width  of 
horizon,   a    depth   of  purpose,   which    make    his 


INTRODUCTION  9 

action  educative  in  the  highest  degree,  while 
immediately  beneficial ;  a  very  spring  of  eternal 
principles  and  considerations,  that  go  on,  working 
by  their  inherent  vitality,  for  the  moral  health  and 
invigoration  of  the  race. 

In  subsequent  chapters  we  desire  to  work  out 
from  Scripture  and  illustrate  in  detail  this  great 
truth.  Even  after  the  many  contributions  which 
have  been  made  in  recent  times  to  the  study  of 
the  social  aspects  of  Christian  truth,  there  is  room 
for  such  a  discussion.  Indeed,  the  probability 
that  attention  is  to  be  more  than  ever  called  to 
such  aspects  of  truth,  makes  a  study  of  the  origin 
and  evolution  of  the  social  principle  in  Christian- 
ity, indispensable.  Historians  like  Mr.  Lecky  in 
his  History  of  European  Morals^  writers  in  a  more 
practical  interest  like  Mr.  Brace  the  author  of 
Gesta  Christi,  have  attempted  to  exhibit  the 
distinctive  influence  of  the  Christian  Spirit  on 
social  and  public  life.  And  when  these  writers, 
and  others  who  might  be  named,  present  the 
more  materialised  and  definite  expressions  of  the 
new  leaven  at  work  in  society,  we  feel  how  much 
is  left  out.  We  cannot  understand  what  these 
altered  conditions  and  new  influences  mean,  or 
how  far  they  are  destined   to  go,  till  we  under- 


10  INTRODUCTION 

stand  in  their  origin  and  intention,  the  potencies 
which  have  created  them.  And  we  fail  to  discern 
those  subtler  forces,  answering  to  the  atmosphere 
and  climatic  influences  of  nature,  which,  silent  and 
all-pervasive,  have  been  shaping  men  and  societies 
and  nations  to  far  larger  issues. 

Again,  in  our  systems  of  Christian  ethics,  we 
have  certain  chapters  devoted  to  social  ethics. 
And  those  are  of  great  value  as  presenting  the 
teachings  and  deductions,  directly  or  indirectly 
drawn  from  Holy  Scripture,  as  to  various  aspects 
of  social  duty.  But  such  treatises  also  leave 
very  much  out  of  account.  From  these  didactic 
statements,  the  reader  would  never  learn  that  the 
social  developments  of  Christianity  had  been  a 
living  growth,  the  free  expression  of  Christian 
conviction  and  character  in  all  stages  of  progress, 
working  through  all  varieties  of  type,  disposition, 
and  gift,  utilising  endless  varieties  of  circum- 
stances, reaching  out  with  every  advance  of  the 
Christian  consciousness  to  riper  and  fuller  social 
expression,  now  breaking  into  brilliant  temporary 
blossomings  as  in  chivalry,  or  deviating  into 
partial  manifestations  like  the  crusades  or  even 
monasticism,  yet  never  ceasing,  learning  by 
failure,  profiting  from  eveiy  furnace  of  trial,  filling 


INTRODUCTION  ii 

the  enlarging  scope  of  new  opportunity  with 
finer  influences  and  even  fresh  species  of  fruit, 
and  so  striving  for  dominion  over  the  many-sided 
Hfe  of  man. 

We  must  study  the  life  which  has  produced 
these  fruits  in  its  sources,  in  the  manner  of  its 
entrance  into  the  social  sphere,  in  the  directions 
of  its  social  activities.  We  shall  then  be  able  to 
rise  above  isolated  effects,  and  behold  in  the 
external  life  of  men,  the  correlated  manifestations 
of  the  Christian  Spirit  We  shall  discern  them 
in  their  living  outflow,  innumerous  individual 
varieties,  ceaseless  modifications  and  corrections, 
and  even  seeming  clashings  and  collisions,  yet 
pervaded  by  a  common  spirit,  and  working  to  one 
all-comprehensive  end. 

Our  subject  then  branches  into  two  leading 
divisions.  First,  we  must  very  briefly  exhibit  the 
root  from  which  these  potencies  of  the  Spiritual 
character  spring — the  type  of  life  which  gives 
rise  to  them,  the  manner  in  which  they  emerge  in 
experience,  and  how  they  advance  in  covering  the 
whole  territory  of  experience.  Secondly,  having 
dealt  with  these  matters,  we  shall  take  up  the 
potencies  in  detail,  and  show  how  they  work  in 
the    several    spheres  of  social   action.      We   can 


12  INTRODUCTION 

only  promise  a  popular  treatment,  in  a  directly 
religious  interest.  We  may,  however,  suggest 
some  thoughts,  which  in  more  fertile  soil  may 
bring  forth  richer  fruit. 

Meantime,  one  practical  reflection  comes  home 
to  the  mind.  Not  by  the  elimination  of  the 
redemptive  element  in  our  faith,  but  by  its  exalt- 
ation ;  not  by  a  dissolution  of  doctrine  into  vague 
allegiance,  but  by  a  definite  rising  along  the 
prescribed  path  of  Scripture  truth  into  clearer 
conception  of  God's  way  of  holiness,  and  by  a 
fuller  walking  in  that  way,  can  Christian  men 
grow  in  moral  influence  over  society,  as  they 
grow  in  surrender,  self-crucifixion,  and  spiritual 
likeness  to  their  Lord. 


CHAPTER    II 

THE   CHRISTIAN    PERSONALITY   IN   TRAINING 
FOR   SERVICE 

The  aim  of  this  volume  has  been  described. 
We  are  seeking,  not  so  much  present  guidance 
with  regard  to  immediate  social  responsibilities, 
as  the  right  point  of  view,  from  which  to  con- 
sider the  entrance  of  the  social  element  into  the 
Christian  religion.  We  have  no  title  whatever 
to  intrude,  as  a  judge  or  divider,  among  those 
who  are  discussing  social  theories,  and  pressing 
their  particular  schemes  on  the  notice  of  the 
public.  We  have  seen,  however,  on  high  authority, 
the  commanding  influence  of  religion  on  social 
problems,  and  if  we  can  show  how  from  that 
individual  relation  of  righteousness  before  God, 
which  Christ  came  to  establish,  all  the  social 
activities  of  redeemed  men  spring,  we  may  help 
others  in  their  meditations  and  judgments. 

If  this  is  to  be  thoroughly  done,  however,  we 
must  not  rest  content  with  reading  off  the  findings 

13 


14    THE  CHRISTIAN   PERSONALITY 

of  our  individual  experience.  For  practical  ends 
of  religious  stimulus  and  edification  these  findings 
are  of  great  value ;  although  even  then  they  must 
be  tested  and  supported  by  Holy  Scripture.  But 
when  we  are  facing  a  problem  so  vast,  as  the 
power  of  Christianity  to  resist  all  disintegrating 
influences,  and  provide  the  unifying  force  of 
human  society,  we  long  for  something  more 
authoritative,  all-embracing,  and  exact,  than  any 
personal  findings  could  be. 

About  a  generation  —  more  or  less  —  after 
Christ  had  passed  away,  some  of  those  who  had 
absorbed  His  teaching,  were  led  to  put  down  in 
writing  their  crystallised  experiences  of  life  and 
conduct,  truth  and  duty.  They  did  this  under 
circumstances,  which  of  themselves  gave  a  pecu- 
liar importance  to  their  teaching.  The  originat- 
ing facts  of  Christianity  were  to  most  of  them 
matters  of  immediate  personal  experience.  Their 
risen  Lord  had  recently  passed  from  earth  to 
the  unseen.  His  absence  from  earth,  however, 
proved  but  the  extension  and  perpetuation  of 
His  influence.  The  apostles,  in  a  sense  wholly 
new,  became  conscious  of '  the  spiritual  life  around 
this  earthly  life,'  of  a  sovereignty  whose  seat 
was  in  Heaven,  of  power  flowing  forth  from  the 


IN   TRAINING   FOR   SERVICE         15 

unseen,  of  a  vast  world  of  spiritual  forces,  helping 
and  hindering.  These  seemed  solid  as  the  things 
of  sense,  from  their  unquestioned  results.  In  the 
consciousness  of  these  heavenly  realities,  they 
went  forth  to  their  mission  of  subduing  the 
world,  fronting  a  civilisation  that,  hurrying  to 
dissolution,  presented  on  every  side  utter  con- 
trasts to  the  Kingdom  of  God. 

In  these  circumstances,  which  would  never 
recur  again,  those  men  were  empowered,  as  the 
event  proved,  to  write  out  the  principles  of  the 
renewed  life,  the  vital  elements  of  the  new  con- 
sciousness of  faith,  the  lines  of  growth,  the  new 
living  senses  of  obligation  springing  from  gracious 
relations  to  God  and  man,  in  terms  of  experience, 
but  with  a  universality  and  an  unerring  truth, 
which  should  serve  as  a  mirror  and  guide  for 
all  future  generations  of  Christians.  And  in 
order  of  time,  these  Epistles  form  the  nucleus  of 
New  Testament  Scripture.  Christ  was  setting 
up  a  Divine  Kingdom  on  the  plane  of  the  Spirit. 
First  of  all,  the  new  unit  of  a  redeemed  experience 
had  to  be  described  on  every  side,  brought  out 
into  full  contrast  with  every  other  possible  con- 
dition of  the  soul.  To  that  redeemed  man,  the 
whole  discovery  of  the  Kingdom  was  to  be  made. 


i6    THE  CHRISTIAN   PERSONALITY 

In  and  through  him  all  its  powers  were  to  be 
realised.  Then,  sifted  from  a  great  mass  of 
tradition,  came  the  Gospels,  presenting  the  Person 
of  the  Redeemer,  His  consummate  purity,  His 
holy  obedience.  His  self-dedication  to  suffering, 
His  ideals  of  the  Kingdom. 

While  the  Gospels,  then,  are  of  prime  importance, 
as  exhibiting  to  the  redeemed  man,  in  the  vivid 
concrete  of  fact,  in  profound  imagery,  in  far- 
reaching  ethical  principles,  and  in  prophetic 
forecast,  that  great  Kingdom  to  which  Christ 
has  introduced  him,  yet  the  Epistles  keep  their 
nuclear  position.  In  them  are  the  statics  and 
dynamics  of  the  redeemed  consciousness.  The 
man  who  sees  the  Kingdom  of  God,  who  is  able 
to  realise  the  ideals  of  Christ,  is  the  man  begotten 
from  above.  All  kinds  of  benign  affections  spring 
from  following  Christ,  but  we  are  not  to  consider 
that  following  to  be  identical  with  a  mere  outflow 
of  natural  affections.  All  good  acts  must  spring 
from  a  good  life,  formed  in  the  soul  by  God.  The 
redeemed  character  is  a  divine  creation,  deter- 
mined from  within  by  the  truth  which  it  receives, 
by  the  Divine  Spirit  who  makes  real  to  it  the 
things  of  God,  and  by  the  new-loving  obedience, 
leaping  up  in  response  from  a  Spirit-quickened  and 


IN  TRAINING  FOR  SERVICE         17 

love-inflamed  heart.  Despite  their  occasional 
form,  then,  the  immediate  purposes  which  they 
served,  and  their  frequent  hortatory  strain,  these 
Epistles  are  of  fundamental  importance  in  the 
scheme  of  revelation — containing  the  science  of 
the  redeemed  experience  —  according  to  whose 
vital  laws  the  Kingdom  of  God  will  take  shape, 
and  Christian  personalities  exert  an  influence  on 
society  and  the  world. 

These  remarks  have  been  rendered  necessary 
because,  as  we  shall  see  more  fully  later  on,  the 
growth  of  the  Kingdom  and  the  accumulation  of 
social  influence,  like  what  obtains  in  vegetable 
and  animal  life,  is  from  within,  a  vital  process, 
the  result  of  the  free  action,  in  personal  units,  of 
spiritual  gift  and  character.  Everything  in  our 
study  hangs  on  the  accuracy  with  which  these 
units  of  character  are  analysed  and  presented 
to  our  view.  Further,  we  are  about,  for  the  sake 
of  condensed  treatment,  to  work  out  our  view 
from  a  brief  portion  of  Paul's  Epistle  to  the 
Philippians.  If  we  had  not  found,  then,  every- 
where throughout  these  Epistles,  a  truly  scientific 
exactness,  yea,  a  divine  depth  of  vision  beyond 
all  human  measures  of  exactness,  in  the  inter- 
pretation and  education  of  redeemed  experience, 

B 


i8    THE   CHRISTIAN   PERSONALITY 

we  would  hesitate  to  believe  that  there  could  be 
such  a  range  of  meaning  in  clauses  so  seeming 
simple. 

With  Bishop  Lightfoot  we  believe  that  the 
third  and  fourth  chapters  of  the  Epistle  to  the 
Philippians  are  of  the  nature  of  an  appendix. 
Manifestly  Paul  is  drawing  to  a  close  with, 
*  Finally,  my  brethren,  rejoice  in  the  Lord '  (iii.  i). 
Something,  however,  compels  him  to  resume. 
He  is  at  the  meeting-place  of  all  the  conflicts 
and  confusions  of  ancient  civilisation.  Led  by 
Nero,  Rome  was  in  a  perpetual  whirl  and  riot  of 
the  flesh  ;  forces  of  evil,  ever  emerging,  threatened 
its  overthrow.  Yet  the  life  in  God  could  be 
lived  victoriously  amid  all.  As  Giotto  in  one 
sweep  drew  a  perfect  circle,  presenting  it  to 
Pope  Benedict  in  proof  of  his  powers,  Paul  in  a 
few  bold  lines  draws  a  picture  of  a  man  in  Christ, 
avoiding  the  Scylla  of  self-righteousness  and  the 
Charybdis  of  licence,  rising  into  ever-growing 
conformity  with  Christ,  fearless  of  opposition, 
fronting  all  possible  change,  yet  filling  every 
sphere  of  present  opportunity  with  the  new  spirit 
of  Jesus.  The  portrait  is  etched  roughly  in,  amid 
personal  references  and  side  -  glances  of  many 
kinds;    but,  once   fairly  grasped,  it   stands   out 


IN  TRAINING  FOR  SERVICE        19 

a  pattern  picture  of  the  Christian,  though  shaped 
to  the  special  exigencies  of  apostolic  times. 

The  immediate  occasion  seems  to  have  been 
an  outburst  of  Jewish  opposition,  or  proselytism. 
With  peculiar  severity,  he  denies  to  these  oppo- 
nents any  of  the  elements  of  the  godly  character. 
Dogs,  evil  workers,  they  are  nothing  better  than 
self-mutilators,  in  what  they  term  circumcision. 
For  there  is  no  spiritual  significance  behind — no 
separation  to  God,  or  life  in  Him. 

Here,  in  a  sentence,  is  the  vital  element  of  the 
redeemed  character  —  separation  to  God.  But 
the  Christian  has  a  very  special  separation. 
He  has  not  received  an  external  mark  merely, 
to  witness  that  this  is  a  man  separated  in  every 
faculty  of  body  and  soul  to  God.  He  is  yielded 
up  to  the  living  Divine  Spirit.  In  his  inmost 
being,  he  is  separated  unto  God,  through  voluntary 
surrender  on  his  part,  and  inhabitation  by  God's 
own  life.  In  that  indwelling  power,  he  acts 
against  the  swollen  energies  of  the  sinful  self, 
serving  God,  making  his  life  one  homage  to  God. 
He  does  this  freely,  moved  from  within  by  love 
and  desire.  He  is  out  of  the  region  of  law,  in  the 
sphere  of  sonship,  akin  with  God  through  His 
communicated  Spirit.     This  is  the  normal  plane, 


20    THE  CHRISTIAN   PERSONALITY 

and  spirit,  and  fellowship  of  the  Christian  believer. 
Decentralised,  God-possessed,  he  finds  in  God  not 
only  a  fountain  of  personal  life,  but  a  bond  of  union 
with  men.  This  mighty  change,  existence  on  this 
new  plane  and  in  this  new  power,  underlies  and 
accounts  for  all  that  he  becomes  or  achieves. 

And,  following  out  Paul's  statement,  we  are  in 
this  wonderful  condition  of  liberty  and  power  and 
fellowship ;  not  through  anything  of  our  own  : 
'we  make  our  boast  of  Christ.'  Not  only  did  He 
deliver  us  at  the  first,  in  Him  we  stand  delivered  ; 
in  Him,  on  the  ground  of  His  sacrifice  and 
through  His  intercession,  do  we  enjoy  every 
blessing  of  this  new  condition.  And  accepted 
in  Him,  entering  through  Him  into  union  with 
God,  realising  the  presence  of  the  Spirit  through 
His  grace,  we  have  broken  utterly  with  all  con- 
fidence in  ourselves.  We  see  at  once  the  incurable 
hostility  and  the  inability  of  the  flesh  to  secure 
one  of  these  blessings. 

We  have  said  nothing  directly  of  the  natural 
qualities  of  the  human  personality,  because  human 
nature  has  become  conscious  of  the  constituent 
qualities  of  its  own  higher  life,  more  from  the 
working  of  God's  grace  in  fertilising  power  within 
its  faculties,  than  from  any  other  cause.     In  the 


IN   TRAINIxNG   FOR  SERVICE        21 

brief  word  of  Paul  which  we  have  just  analysed, 
the  constituents  of  personality  stand  out  in  clear 
light — the  consciousness  of  freedom,  the  sense  of 
dependence  on  God,  the  conviction  of  being  under 
obligation,  a  power  of  judging  the  adequacy  or 
inadequacy  of  one's  own  acts,  their  right  and 
wrong :  faith — that  power  of  the  whole  personality 
to  make  appeal  in  dependence,  and  under  the 
sense  of  need,  to  God. 

But  not  only  is  man's  free  responsible  person- 
ality discovered  to  itself  in  grace,  but  because  the 
whole  strain  of  that  grace-relation  rests  on  Christ, 
the  human  personality  comes  under  the  mag- 
netism of  the  mighty  Personality  of  the  Redeemer. 
And  here  the  apostle,  with  splendid  originality, 
works  out  a  thought  whose  expansion  might  well 
take  an  equivalent  volume — the  growth  of  the 
finite  human  personality  up  into  ever  fuller  union 
with  the  Son  of  God.  Bound  to  Jesus  by  the  bond 
of  an  infinite  obligation,  the  believer  sees  rising 
before  him  a  great  constellation  of  ideals — personal 
ideals,  all  fulfilled  in  Christ — which  draw  out  every 
side  of  his  being  in  ever-mounting  surrender.  The 
.sum  of  all  good  blossoms  out  in  Him,  blossom 
upon  blossom,  and  Paul  throws  himself  out  in 
surrender,   seeking   by  the   Spirit  to  conform  to 


22    THE   CHRISTIAN  PERSONALITY 

that  Higher  Will,  and  live  in  true  kindred  and 
fellowship  with  that  perfect  life. 

And  so,  if  the  Christian  character  is  to  cul- 
minate in  social  activities,  and  prove  the  trans- 
figuring moral  force  of  time,  it  begins  to  form 
in  quite  another  sphere, — in  the  sanctuary  of  the 
heart  with  the  living  Lord.  The  outwardness 
of  world-dominion  is  to  spring  from  a  deeper 
inwardness,  than  the  human  soul  has  ever  before 
known.  Christian  character  shall  rise  so  high 
and  branch  so  widely,  because  rooted  so  deeply 
and  by  every  tendril  of  the  nature,  in  personal 
fellowship  with  Christ. 

Since,  then,  the  social  power  of  the  Christian 
personality  is  the  power  of  Christ  manifested  in 
and  working  through  it,  we  are  at  the  generating 
centre  of  the  whole  movement,  when  we  study,  as 
now,  the  manner  in  which,  and  the  stages  by 
which,  the  human  personality  is  taken  up  into 
the  perpetual  and  eternal  fellowship  of  the  Son 
of  God.  Only  through  the  establishment  of  such 
a  contact,  could  there  flow  over  into  man  such 
energies  of  God.  Surely  we  are  on  holy  ground, 
surely  we  need  the  fullest  purging  of  mind  and 
heart,  when  we  come  into  that  place,  where,  strand 
by  strand,  the  great  cable  of  the  human  heart  is 


IN   TRAINING  FOR  SERVICE        23 

woven  into  oneness  with  the  Hfe  of  the  Son,  so 
woven  that  it  can  stand  all  strains,  not  only  of 
personal  needs,  but  of  world-conflicts,  and  shall 
yet  bind  the  whole  life  of  man  to  the  throne  of  God. 

In  Dante's  great  poem  of  Piirgatorio  there  is  a 
magnificent  figure  which  in  a  manner  fills  the 
book.  We  see  how  Dante  climbed  the  mountain 
of  perfection.  That,  however,  is  no  task  for  any 
fancied  middle  state,  but  the  test  and  trial  of 
time,  issuing  in  the  consummation  of  eternity. 
Still  the  figure,  used  after  our  own  fashion,  will 
help  us  on  our  way.  The  plain  where  Paul 
and  the  saints  sing  their  Israel  in  Egypto,  their 
triumph-psalm,  is  the  plane  of  conscious  forgive- 
ness. 'They  worship  God  in  the  Spirit,  exult 
in  Christ,  and  have  no  confidence  in  the  flesh' 
(iii.  3).  At  first  they  exult  in  mere  possession ; 
but  presently  in  the  sacrifice  of  Christ,  their  one 
hope,  there  rises  before  them  a  great  Ideal  OF 
Sacrifice.  Since  He  has  given  all  for  them, 
they  must  sacrifice  for  Him.  And  so  they  begin 
to  climb,  Paul  leading  the  way — '  What  things 
were  gain,  those  I  counted  loss  for  Christ'  (iii.  7). 

He  has  not  travelled  far  in  the  path  of  sacrifice, 
his  life  has  not  long  swung  upwards  round  the 
spiral  stair  of  self-crucifixion,  before  the  apostle 


24    THE  CHRISTIAN   PERSONALITY 

finds  that  an  experience  so  conditioned,  is  no 
mere  asceticism,  no  mutilation  of  the  God-given 
nature,  but  emancipation.  With  every  upward 
step  comes  new  vision.  Losing  the  goods  of  self, 
we  gain  the  higher  good  of  love.  We  begin  to  see 
existence  lying  under  the  light  of  love.  Every 
act  of  self-sacrifice  liberates  the  soul  from  the 
selfish  circumscriptions  of  the  past.  A  breath 
from  the  Infinite  blows  through  us.  We  are 
linked  to  the  larger  life  of  God.  A  new  sense 
of  the  infinite  worth  of  being  leaps  up  in  flood- 
tide  within  our  hearts ;  and  in  the  joy  of  first 
attainment  we  see  the  glory  of  the  life  of  sacrifice, 
consummated  in  the  Person  and  work  of  Christ. 
All  glories  of  possession  and  power  dwindle 
before  that  personal  glory,  which  gleams,  a  very 
apocalypse  of  perfect  manhood,  out  of  the  fiery 
ordeal  of  failure  and  sacrifice.  And  so,  losing  all 
sense  of  loss,  Paul  thinks  only  of  the  gain  to 
come  through  loss.  An  Ideal  of  Knowledge 
gleams  up  the  steep,  wooing  at  once  to  fuller 
self-crucifixion  and  truer  self-oblivion.  Things — 
material  possessions  —  what  are  they  but  loss, 
excrement,  a  waste  matter,  when  put  in  com- 
parison with  such  excellences  of  the  soul.  'Yea, 
doubtless,  and  I  count  all  things  but  loss  for  the 


IN   TRAINING   FOR  SERVICE        25 

excellency  of  the  knowledge  of  Christ  Jesus  my 
Lord,'  etc.  (iii.  8).  The  things  which  have  been 
given  up  are  no  more  forfeited  boons.  They  have 
no  glory  by  reason  of  the  glory  that  excelleth. 

How  far  that  carries  us  up  the  mountain  only 
those  can  know  who  have  sought  with  self- 
crucified  souls  to  enter  into  the  mind,  and  do 
the  will  of  their  Lord.  But  we  are  very  distant 
from  the  summit  still,  and  the  next  stage  is 
not  one  which  would  ever  occur  to  any  of  us. 
Here  we  must  observe  the  working  of  the  Spirit, 
and  not  obtrude  theories  of  our  own.  And  we 
mention  the  matter  because  defect  in  perception 
of  the  distinctive  elements  of  a  Christian  ex- 
perience, and  ignorance  of  the  real  strands  of  a 
Christian  character,  lead  to  defective  views  of  the 
personal  and  social  influences  which  spring  there- 
from. The  recognition  of  love  as  the  quality  of 
the  highest  life  is  now  general.  But  men  work 
out  their  conceptions  of  love  from  ordinary  human 
levels,  or  from  certain  philosophic  concepts,  in 
such  a  way  as  to  create  an  effusive  sentimentalism, 
or  social  gospels,  distinguished  at  once  by  exag- 
geration and  defect. 

As  life  is  only  through  Christ,  so  in  every 
movement   and    aspiration    can   it   feel   and   act 


26    THE  CHRISTIAN   PERSONALITY 

aright  only  through  the  immediate  inspiration  of 
the  Holy  Spirit.  Only  He  can  interpret  this  life 
to  itself  and  draw  it  on  to  higher  things  ;  and  He 
teaches  us  at  this  point  in  our  upward  progress 
what  we  would  never  have  learned  for  ourselves. 
The  next  coign  of  vantage  which  we  would  reach 
is  the  Ideal  of  Righteousness.  When  we 
came  first  to  Christ  we  needed  a  righteousness 
with  which  to  cover  us.  But  the  old  need  (which 
never  leaves  us)  comes  with  a  new  intensity  to 
our  hearts  at  this  point.  Most  men  look  upon 
this  teaching  of  loving  self-sacrifice  as  a  counsel 
of  perfection.  In  the  Spirit  we  see  that  it  describes 
the  life  of  God,  which  we  must  live  if  we  are  to 
be  His  children.  He  lives  to  love,  His  whole 
activity  is  an  outflow  of  love.  We  can  have  no 
kindred  with  Him,  save  as  in  the  Spirit  we  are 
living  that  life  of  love. 

The  moment  that  we  discern  this  truth,  we  get 
a  new  vision  of  sin.  We  discern,  mounting  im- 
measurably far  above  our  former  thoughts  of 
sin,  our  defects  in  the  view  of  love,  the  egoism 
of  our  religion,  the  self-absorption  in  personal 
need  which  survives  our  self-surrender,  the  circum- 
scription of  our  sympathies,  the  narrow  censorious- 
ness  of  our  judgments,  our  ill-considered  words 


IN   TRAINING  FOR  SERVICE        27 

and  deeds.  Before  God  we  feel,  as  we  did  not 
even  at  our  first  coming,  our  need  of  being 
covered  with  the  blood  of  Christ.  What  was 
our  first  refuge  becomes  our  daily  resort,  under 
the  piercing  vision  of  God. 

And  there  is  far  more  behind.  If  we  are  ever 
to  be  conformed  to  the  mind  of  Christ,  there  is 
only  one  way.  We  must  come  just  as  we  are — 
and  not  merely  when  we  are  hounded  by  particular 
senses  of  sin,  but  always,  through  Christ  our 
righteousness,  to  God,  confessing  the  remanent 
being  of  sin,  as  well  as  whatever  acts  of  sin.  We 
must  confess  our  pain,  at  being  so  infinitely  far 
from  .the  heights  of  His  perfection.  Anew  we 
must  renounce  sin  utterly  as  a  law  of  life.  Anew 
we  must  renounce  self  as  a  being  of  sin.  Anew 
we  must  yield  ourselves  to  Christ,  that  in  Him 
we  may  be  accepted  and  brought  nigh  to  God. 
And  so  what  we  want  is  not  a  personal  excel- 
lence apart  from  Christ,  but  to  be  found  in 
Christ,  to  rise  up  into  a  larger  union  and  identity 
of  interest,  spirit,  and  aim  with  Him. 

The  lily  grows  up  from  within,  sheathed  in 
the  enclosing  stalk  and  leaves  and  calyx;  but 
pushing  up  invisibly  from  within,  it  emerges  a 
bud,  a  flower- bell.      And  so    Paul  wants  to  be 


28    THE   CHRISTIAN   PERSONALITY 

swathed  in  this  union  with  Christ,  identified  with 
Him  in  death  and  resurrection — '  Not  having 
mine  own  righteousness,  which  is  of  the  law,  but 
that  which  comes  from  an  hourly  trust  in  Christ, 
the  righteousness  which  is  of  God  by  faith '  (iii.  9). 
And  his  deep  desire  for  this  realised  oneness,  is 
that  Christ  and  he  may  be  one,  in  spirit  as  in 
standing.  That  is  a  marvellous  saying — found  in 
Christ — nowhere  else,  wholly  taken  up  into  Him, 
personally  yielded,  possessed  by  His  mind  and 
aims ;  Christ  growing  up  in  him,  into  a  new 
individual  manifestation,  through  his  continual 
surrender. 

Here  is  the  marvel  of  the  Gospel.  At  this 
point  we  see,  whence  comes  the  new  personal 
dynamic,  which  transfigures  private,  and  social,  and 
public  life.  The  man  who  will  not  allow  for  this 
creative  element,  simply  does  not  know  the  facts 
and  forces  with  which  he  would  deal.  Through 
identification  with  Christ  in  His  righteousness, 
we  are  carried  off  the  old  false  centre  to  a  true 
heart-surrender.  Through  these  open  channels 
of  trust,  the  energies  of  the  spirit  flow.  We  begin 
to  live  under  the  influence  of  new  considerations, 
amid  a  new  atmosphere  of  feeling  and  thought. 
As  we  are  willing  to  move  in  these  currents,  the 


IN  TRAINING   FOR  SERVICE        29 

Spirit,  working  from  within,  quickens  every  reach 
of  our  nature  to  which  we  could  never  get  down, 
so  that  there  are  outblossomings  of  desire  and 
resolve  which  are  a  marvel  to  ourselves.  Our 
individuality,  all  our  special  traits,  come  out  into 
fuller  expression.  It  is  we  who  act  and  grow 
and  are  being  built  up  in  character,  yet  infused 
with  all,  reigning  in  all,  shining  forth  ever  more 
markedly,  are  the  spirit  and  image  of  Jesus.  The 
Master  is  reproduced  in  the  servant,  the  Head  is 
living  through  and  controlling  the  member,  the 
whole  redeemed  and  sanctified  personality  lies 
within  lines  of  a  supreme  surrender,  and  is 
standing  on  a  footing  of  continual  dependence 
upon  the  grace  and  power  of  Christ,  so  that  the 
Christ  in  him  is  a  larger  element  than  his  own 
individuality.  Found  in  Christ — a  Christo-centric 
personality  is  drawing  up,  and  revealing  through 
a  particular  human  type,  the  glory  and  power  of 
Jesus. 

This  is  the  character  that  has  worked  such 
wonders  in  the  social  life  of  the  world.  Without 
that  peculiar  preparation,  we  could  not  have  had 
the  characteristic  effects  to  be  exhibited  in  later 
chapters.  Christ  is  the  great  lifting  power  of 
human  society.     He  creates  the  ideal  of  sacrifice 


30    THE  CHRISTIAN  PERSONALITY 

in  those  whom  He  has  redeemed.  Along  the 
difficult  path  of  sacrifice,  He  raises  them  to  a  vision 
of  Love  as  the  good  of  all  life.  And  pressing 
towards  this  ideal  of  knowledge,  those  who  are 
seeking  at  all  cost  to  live  this  life  of  love,  are 
drawn  into  closer  fellowship  with  the  righteous 
Redeemer, — in  Him  and  by  His  grace  rising 
toward  a  life  more  and  more  conformed  to  His 
own.  Let  us  pause  here,  and  continue  the  upward 
progress  in  a  subsequent  chapter. 


CHAPTER    III 

THE   IMITATION   OF  CHRIST   AS  A   SOCIAL 
DISCIPLINE 

We  have  reached  a  very  significant  stage.  In 
his  progress  hitherto  up  this  great  mountain,  of 
sanctified  conformity  to  Christ's  will,  we  have 
seen  the  believer  reach  a  platform  which  is  an 
epoch  in  his  experience,  and  will  remain  an 
epoch  to  the  end.  Frankly,  continuously,  he  is 
living  off  self  as  the  law  of  his  life,  from  the  root 
of  living  union  with  Christ,  and  by  the  forces  of 
His  grace. 

So  soon,  however,  as  the  Christian  man  realises 
the  forces  which  are  at  work  in  him,  and  which 
he  may  continually  enjoy,  while  he  maintains 
living  union  with  Christ,  he  feels  for  his  staff 
and  scroll.  He  longs,  with  this  new  power,  to 
reach  a  closer  conformity  to  the  Spirit  of  Jesus. 
In  this  surrender  and  fellowship  with  Christ, 
righteousness  is  a  practicable  ideal,  not  as  a 
personal    achievement,   but   as   the   complement 

31 


32       THE   IMITATION   OF  CHRIST 

and  completion  of  his  faith ;  the  forces  of  grace 
coming  in  through  the  open  gate  of  faith  to  build 
up  a  righteousness  in  the  Spirit  and  after  the 
likeness  of  Christ. 

As  he  mounts  up  with  painful  footstep, 
surrendered  to  Christ  and  deriving  all  strength 
from  Him,  the  ideal  of  a  righteousness  in  His 
strength  merges  and  is  lost  in  a  further  height, 
which  now  stands  out  clear  against  the  sky. 
Why, — what  is  he  aiming  at  ?  Condemnation  is 
past,  legal  standards  are  done  away.  This  which 
he  has  been  calling  by  the  hard  legal  name 
righteousness,  is  nothing  less  than  likeness  to 
Jesus,  conformity  to  His  will,  identity  with  His 
Spirit,  being  built  up  in  His  image.  An  Ideal 
OF  Imitation  becomes  the  passion  of  his  soul — 
'That  I  may  know  Him'  (iii.  lo).  Steadfastly  he 
lays  himself  out  to  live  as  Christ  lived  in  the 
world,  to  grow  up  into  His  thoughts,  to  manifest 
His  Spirit,  to  realise  His  aims,  and  to  live  His 
life  of  uninterrupted  communion  with  and  perfect 
submission  to  the  Father,  dying  to  self,  living  for 
the  great  ends  of  His  Kingdom. 

To  many  that  seems  the  easiest  thing  in  the 
world,  but  it  is  the  most  difficult.  You  cannot 
begin  to  imitate  Christ,  till  you  are  fully  sur- 


AS   A  SOCIAL  DISCIPLINE  33 

rendered  to  Christ  and  are  living  in  the  power  of 
His  Spirit.  In  any  other  way,  you  are  certain  to 
be  caught  with  surface  qualities  of  His  mission,  or 
specific  applications,  to  the  neglect  of  that  central 
spirit  of  trust,  and  love,  and  obedience,  that  glori- 
fied all.  If  in  the  strain  and  stress  of  a  natural 
self-denial,  we  attempt  this  imitation,  we  breed 
asceticism.  If  in  modern  wise,  we  grasp  His  social 
teaching,  without  a  surrender  to  His  Person  and 
appropriation  of  His  Spirit,  we  win  more  or  less 
of  His  doctrine,  but  without  the  inner  vision  that 
keeps  from  exaggeration,  or  the  transfiguring 
power  that,  as  vital  sap,  makes  all  things  new,  as 
fire,  melts  barriers  away.  There  is  nothing  which 
we  want  so  much  in  the  present  day,  as  the 
originality  and  power  which  come  from  a  high 
standard  of  the  imitation  of  Jesus.  And  with  all 
the  eager  searching  for  a  more  excellent  way, 
characteristic  of  our  time,  few  there  be,  compara- 
tively, who  find  it. 

We  must  entertain  a  very  high  respect  for  Him 
whom  we  would  imitate.  Respect  must  deepen 
into  worship, — that  profoundest  of  all  worship,  in 
which  we  abase  ourselves  to  nothing,  that  the 
Holy  Spirit,  applying  the  truth  of  Scripture,  may 
bring  the  mind  of  Christ  as  a  living  quality  and 

C 


34       THE   IMITATION   OF  CHRIST 

power  into  our  minds.  And  it  is  only  when 
this  attitude  is  the  law  of  the  life,  repeated  every 
morning,  that  bright  and  strong  like  an  alp  above 
the  whirl  and  din  of  our  own  thoughts,  the  mind 
of  Jesus  stands  out  clear  and  unmistakable,  in  a 
light  and  with  a  constraint,  which  are  of  the  Spirit 
of  God.  The  subtle  secret  influence  is  so  simple, 
that  an  unreflecting  mind  may  not  discern  the 
wonder  of  it.  We  are  guided  to  do  the  right  deed, 
to  sound  the  true  note,  to  touch  with  sure  hand, 
the  springs  of  the  human  heart.  We  are  kept 
above  our  natural  failings,  in  a  quiet  intensity 
of  Christlike  endeavour.  The  whole  may  be 
on  life's  commoner  levels,  beneath  the  notice  of 
the  world.  But  hearts  are  being  quickened  into 
recognition  of  self-denying  love,  generous  impulses 
are  being  kindled  in  a  small  company  of  plain 
people.  The  actual  mind  of  Jesus  in  some  frag- 
ment of  its  activity  is  alive  and  operative  in 
human  hearts  again. 

Carrying  us  past  all  theories, —  asceticism, 
socialism,  communism,  —  the  Holy  Spirit,  right 
where  we  are,  in  the  set  of  circumstances  in  which 
we  find  ourselves,  kindles  that  spirit,  to  which  the 
will  of  Jesus  is  perfect  good.  Our  immediate 
concern   is   not  so   much    touching   the   outward 


AS   A   SOCIAL  DISCIPLINE  35 

conditions  of  life,  as  loving  men  with  something 
of  Christ's  own  love.  And  in  this  there  is  no 
ascetic  strain.  Changed  in  heart,  illumined  from 
within,  we  find  in  this  life  pure  joy,  perfect 
liberty.  We  do  not  crucify  our  natural  kindly 
feelings,  or  our  common-sense.  This  life  of  love, 
taught  and  maintained  within  us  by  the  Holy 
Spirit,  appears  in  our  view — albeit  we  could 
not  originate  one  pulse  by  any  strength  of  our 
own — appears  the  very  essence  of  reason,  allying 
itself  with  whatever  resources  of  natural  faculty 
we  possess.  When  we  are  being  carried  far  in 
fervours  of  intercession  into  converse  with  Christ, 
bearing  burdens  of  need  into  His  presence,  and 
bearing  away  clear  lights  of  His  guiding,  we 
nevertheless  anoint  our  heads  and  wash  our  faces, 
and  mingle  among  men,  distinguishable  where 
we  are  distinguishable,  only  by  brightness,  and 
sympathy,  and  overcoming  grace,  and  light,  and 
hearts  '  at  leisure  from  themselves.' 

And  while  the  sons  of  the  Father,  in  this 
imitation  of  Jesus,  are  busy  along  a  thousand 
lines  of  outward  life,  in  innumerable  sets  of 
circumstances,  making  the  mind  of  Christ  an 
operative  force  within  many  wills,  and  in  many 
parts  of  the  social  organism,  what  is  happening  to 


36       THE   IMITATION   OF  CHRIST 

themselves  ?  They  are  beginning  to  discern  with 
awe  the  great  School  of  Christ  into  which  they 
have  come.  Old  interests  and  preoccupations 
of  the  natural  man  begin  to  fade  away.  Even 
the  bounds  of  this  mortal  life  glimmer  into  a 
diaphanous  mist,  through  which  the  eternal  out- 
comes of  the  present  can  be  discerned.  The  moral 
and  spiritual  issues  of  things  stand  clear  and  bold 
above  the  flux  of  temporal  concerns.  And  in 
and  through  all,  discovered  to  us  by  the  Holy 
Ghost,  is  the  Christ  by  whom  the  will  of  God  is 
being  perfectly  realised  on  earth  and  in  heaven  ; — 
not  a  mere  historic  reproduction,  not  the  Christ 
of  monkish  tradition,  but  the  Christ  as  He  was, 
and  is  living  again  to  us,  in  the  power  of  the  Holy 
Ghost.  We  are  brought  near  to  Him  in  holy 
hours  of  prayer,— as  those  through  whom  His 
present  will  may  be  done.  We  feel  His  searching 
holiness.  We  yield  ourselves  by  the  Holy  Spirit 
that,  purged  in  vision  and  will,  we  may  be  fitted 
for  His  service;  and  under  the  shadow  of  that 
present  fellowship,  His  life  stands  out  from  the 
Gospel  page  in  a  glory  which  we  had  never  before 
discerned.  Day  by  day,  as  from  the  Sanctuary  of 
His  infinite  Being,  His  thoughts  of  God  possess 
us  in  their   grand  originality.      We  are  carried 


AS  A   SOCIAL  DISCIPLINE  37 

into  the  holy  place  of  His  own  reverence  for  the 
will  of  God ;  we  see  the  childlikeness  of  His 
obedience ;  we  enter  with  a  trembling  sympathy 
into  that  great  experience  of  joy  in  suffering,  for 
the  glory  of  God. 

It  is  a  school  of  personality :  and  knit  to  this 
great  Divine-Human  Personality  by  surrender, 
hourly  yielded  to  Him,  having  Him  hourly  dis- 
covered to  us  in  the  one  perfect  medium  of  the 
Divine  Spirit,  we  grow  up  into  Him.  And  not 
only  in  the  direct  gaze  and  fellowship  of  devotion 
does  the  surrendered  soul  come  to  know,  but  in 
all  the  reflections  of  this  central  light,  from  other 
persons,  from  public  movements,  from  popular 
aspirations.  He  *  becomes  my  universe,'  as  Brown- 
ing sings.  All  our  thoughts  are  taken  up  into 
the  circle  of  His  purpose  ;  not  only  when  we  read 
the  Bible  but  when  we  read  the  newspapers,  and 
mingle  with  affairs,  and  agitate  reforms,  and  look 
over  the  wall  of  our  limitations,  at  other  fields  of 
knowledge  and  action,  with  which  we  are  only 
very  imperfectly  acquainted,  are  we  conscious 
of  a  Presence,  and  see  dimly  the  converging  lines 
of  a  Purpose,  reaching  out  to  a  future  which  we 
can  only  dimly  see. 

And  the  fact  of  this  sends  us  back  to  Himself 


38       THE   IMITATION   OF  CHRIST 

Who  are  we,  to  be  in  the  thick  of  such  move- 
ments ?  Sin  takes  on  a  new  heinousness,  appears 
an  utter  fickleness  and  self-willed  caprice  in  those 
who  should  be  steadfast  sons  of  God.  Daily  we 
must  get  the  cleansing  of  His  precious  Blood. 
Daily  in  the  depths  of  abasement  must  we  receive 
the  filling  of  the  blessed  Spirit.  We  must  be  con- 
tent to  let  our  fond  fancies  be  set  aside,  to  be 
humbled  and  shamed,  when  we  have  let  self  creep 
in,  that  clear  as  a  gleam  from  Alpine  snows  may 
come  to  us  again  the  thought  of  Christ,  and  that 
we  may  stand  on  the  rock  of  His  will,  in  the  line 
of  His  working.  And  so  the  world-purpose  of 
Christ,  and  His  personal  relation  to  us,  act  and 
react  on  each  other.  The  further  we  sink  into 
His  holy  fellowship,  the  more  aflame  our  souls 
are,  that  His  will '  may  be  done  on  earth, — His 
will  in  the  scope,  manner,  spirit,  and  measures  of 
it  as  well  as  in  the  substance,  though  all  human 
plans  and  machinery  should  be  confounded  in  the 
process.  The  more  we  busy  ourselves  in  seeing 
that  His  will  be  done  in  every  sphere  to  which 
our  influence  can  extend,  the  more  continuously 
shall  we  seek  to  be  self-emptied  before  Him,  and 
cleansed  from  fleshly  infirmities,  and  filled  with 
His  Spirit. 


AS  A  SOCIAL  DISCIPLINE  39 

And  now  in  this  close  communion  and  imitation 
a  new  thought  comes — opening-  up  practical  ideals 
of  immense  range.  Since  we  are  in  such  close 
sympathy  with  our  Lord  —  having  (human  in- 
firmities excepted)  one  end,  one  will,  one  spirit — 
all  the  powers  of  His  resurrection-life  may  be 
drawn  upon,  in  the  measure  of  His  people's  faith 
— 'that  I  may  know  Him,  and  the  power  of  His 
resurrection'  (iii.  10).  By  this  we  mean  not  only 
the  energies  of  the  Spirit  welling  up  as  life  from 
within,  but  powers  working  with  the  consecrated 
will  to  the  securing  of  exceptional  results,  order- 
ings  of  providence,  manifold  control  of  outward 
events,  all  which  are  in  the  hands  of  the  risen 
Christ,  the  Mediatorial  King.  So  Wesley  be- 
lieved, that  God  could  rouse  England  by  him. 
So  Morrison  believed,  that  God  was  able  to  break 
down  the  stone  wall  of  Chinese  self-sufficiency. 
So  John  Woolman,  the  Quaker,  believed  that 
God  could  humble  the  slave-power  of  America. 
So  George  Miiller  counted  on  God  giving  him, 
through  myriads  of  unknown  channels,  supplies 
for  His  orphans.  They  knew — they  proved  daily 
the  powers  of  the  risen  Christ. 

This  reaching  up  to  the  power  of  His  resurrec- 
tion is  emptied  of  all  selfish  glorification  or  any 


40       THE   IMITATION  OF  CHRIST 

selfish  end.  The  idea  that  this  power  is  at  his 
disposal,  only  comes  to  the  soul  in  deep  oneness 
of  mind  with  Christ,  and  in  the  hours  when  that 
oneness  is  realised ;  and  what  justifies  to  each 
consecrated  soul  the  seeking  and  using  of  that 
power,  is  the  deep  and  true  conviction  that  he 
only  wants  it  for  Christ's  glory.  The  passion  of 
all  such  is  to  live  as  He  lived,  to  be  yielded  up  to 
God  as  He  was,  not  to  practise  any  reasonless 
asceticism,  but  to  be  ready  for  whatever  might 
be  necessary  to  vindicate  the  honour  of  God,  and 
win  the  hearts  of  men,  to  know  'the  fellowship 
of  His  sufferings  '  (iii.  lo).  Beyond  every  earthly 
ideal,  or  glory,  or  blessing,  they  want  to  be  con- 
formed to  Christ's  death,  to  be  filled  with  His 
very  mind  in  dying — with  the  priestly,  holy  love 
which  animated  Him  on  the  cross,  so  that  they 
may  win  an  entrance  into  that  Kingdom — to  that 
very  throne,  where  in  Christ's  saints  as  in  Him- 
self, that  love  shall  eternally  reign  (iii.  lo,  ii). 

There  is  the  summit  of  the  mountain,  as  it  can, 
with  many  falls,  be  reached  in  time.  Thus,  to  go 
back  upon  our  former  poor  figure,  is  the  cable  of 
the  human  soul  woven,  strand  by  strand,  into  the 
heart  and  will  of  Christ,  so  that  the  power  of 
Christ  may  pass  over  into  it.     This  is  the  original 


AS  A  SOCIAL  DISCIPLINE  41 

contribution  of  Christianity, — this  renewed,  de- 
centralised, transfigured  personality,  in  continual 
communion  with  Christ,  who  redeemed  it,  and 
in  union  with  God  through  Christ.  That  this 
will  tell  for  much,  in  every  sphere  into  which 
it  finds  entrance,  goes  without  saying.  Our 
task  is  to  show,  briefly  and  popularly,  how 
this  renewed  personality  works  in  the  sphere 
of  society ;  and  in  what  remains  of  this  chapter 
we  shall  show  how  Paul  approaches  that  subject. 

We  have  had  many  studies  of  the  Rome  of 
Nero.  Even  fiction  has  aided  history  and 
biography,  by  elaborate  literary  reproductions  of 
that  epoch,  which  seems  to  more  sober  times 
one  long  nightmare  of  cruelty  and  lust.  Not 
only  had  the  early  Christians  no  civil  rights,  or 
recognised  place  in  the  state ;  they  were,  or 
were  very  soon  to  be,  in  continual  peril  of  life. 
Gathering  by  night  in  waste  places,  herding  in 
slave  quarters,  their  anxiety  was  to  elude  notice 
and  remain  invisible.  Yet  amid  every  variety  of 
circumstances,  the  spiritual  life  goes  on.  Their 
pressing  to  the  mark  for  the  prize,  is  irrespective 
of  all  external  well  or  ill.  Yea,  just  because  their 
life  in  the  world  was  so  cramped  and  held  in 
the  chains  of  such  mortal  fear,  were  they  driven 


42        THE   IMITATION   OF  CHRIST 

in  upon  the  unseen.  Their  citizenship  was  in 
heaven.  The  time  of  Christ's  coming  was  at 
hand. 

Manifestly,  in  this  time  of  apprehension,  when 
the  apostle's  one  anxiety  seemed  to  be  to  keep 
them  patient,  steadfast,  trustful,  there  was  no  call 
to  develop  the  bearings  of  this  new  personality  on 
the  various  aspects  of  social  duty.  Yet  even  then 
social  duties  and  relationships  existed,  to  fellow- 
Christians,  Jews,  heathens.  The  Christian  must 
be  the  Christian  in  everything.  In  every  sphere 
open  to  him,  he  must  discover  the  characteristic 
charms  and  power  of  the  Christian  spirit.  And 
so,  not  at  length  but  in  one  full  glorious  sentence, 
the  apostle  Paul  sketches  the  social  spheres,  and 
the  spirit  in  which  the  child  of  God  should  enter 
them  :  '  Finally,  brethren,  whatsoever  things  are 
true,  whatsoever  things  are  honourable,  what- 
soever things  are  just,  whatsoever  things  are 
pure,  whatsoever  things  are  lovely,  whatsoever 
things  are  of  good  report ;  if  there  be  any  virtue, 
and  if  there  be  any  praise,  think  on  these  things' 
(iv.  8,  R.  v.). 

This  was  done  so  simply,  as  to  meet  the 
circumstances  in  which  Paul,  and  Pomponia 
Graecina,   and    they   of  Caesar's    household,   and 


AS  A  SOCIAL  DISCIPLINE  43 

Epaenetus,  and  Apelles  would  find  themselves- 
But  Paul  knew  that  the  kingdom  would  not 
always  be  in  such  a  case.  He  saw  the  forces 
of  the  flesh  yielding  to  Christ,  avenues  of  power 
and  use  beyond  all  present  thought,  opening  before 
the  redeemed.  And  even  beyond  what  he,  with 
the  utmost  stretch  of  imagination,  could  discern, 

'  Feeling  for  foothold  through  a  blank  profound, 
Along  with  unborn  people  in  strange  lands,' 

the  Holy  Spirit,  working  in  him,  discerned.  With 
a  divine  originality,  he  marks  the  social  spheres 
so  as  to  attain  two  fundamental  ends,  the  order 
in  which  the  Christian  spirit  moves  out  into  them, 
and  to  map  out  the  circuit  of  social  duty.  In 
these  brief  outlines  we  are  carried  far  deeper  than 
in  the  ordinary  social  surveys,  discerning  the  well- 
ing up  of  the  Christian  spirit  from  within, — alter- 
ing the  very  strata  of  life,  as  well  as  rising  in 
particular  effects.  We  can  see  the  forces  of  the 
Christian  spirit,  all  working  in  certain  character- 
istic lines  to  specific  results,  modified  by,  yet 
modifying,  circumstances,  attaining  to  enlarged 
expression,  with  the  growth  of  the  spiritual  con- 
sciousness, and  according  to  the  new  openings  of 
providence, — a  living  power  gathering  momentum 


44       THE  IMITATION  OF  CHRIST 

with  the  gathering  years,  and  mounting  in  ever- 
fresh  forms  to  meet  the  vaster  exigencies  of  later 
times. 

There  is  another  idea  in  this  classification 
beyond  what  we  have  expressed.  It  was  a  mar- 
vellous thought  for  Paul,  to  believe  and  assert, 
that  wherever  the  Christian  might  come,  into 
whatever  variety  of  outward  circumstance,  into 
whatever  social  problem  or  puzzling  relationships, 
— yet  as  a  Christian,  in  virtue  of  the  light  he 
carried,  by  the  spirit  which  animated  him,  he 
would  find  his  bearings,  and  discover  a  clear  line 
of  consistent  action.  But  for  a  Jew  born,  it  may 
be,  in  Tarsus,  but  nurtured  in  Jerusalem,  it  was 
wonderful,  exceedingly,  that  he  should  see, — in  a 
true  cosmopolitanism, — that  the  Christian  could 
never  come  across  any  real  virtue,  any  action  or 
course  worthy  of  praise,  that,  from  the  Christian 
standpoint,  he  could  not  assimilate.  From  the 
higher  level  of  communion  with  God,  it  would  be 
his  to  interpret  the  dim  vaticinations  of  heathen 
minds,  to  read  a  soul  of  meaning  in  common 
human  aspirations ;  and  to  carry  them  to  higher 
ground  and  give  them  vaster  sweep,  in  connection 
with  Christian  civilisation. 

In  the  two  following  chapters,  we  shall  open 


AS   A  SOCIAL  DISCIPLINE  45 

up  the  teaching  of  this  singularly  comprehensive 
utterance — so  far  as  to  define  in  two  main 
directions  its  scope ;  and  then  in  the  chapters 
comprising  Part  II.  we  shall  illustrate  the  work- 
ing of  the  potencies  of  Christian  character  in 
these  varied  spheres,  bringing  the  whole  to  a 
conclusion  with  some  practical  reflections  as  to 
the  most  fruitful  lines  of  Christian  teaching  and 
discipline  at  the  present  time. 


CHAPTER    IV 

THE   SOCIAL   POTENCIES   OF   THE   CHRISTIAN 
CHARACTER 

If  what  has  been  taught  in  the  preceding  chapters 
be  true,  the  words  in  Phil.  iv.  8  are  worthy  of  most 
attentive  study.  They  sketch  in  brief,  a  new 
beginning  in  the  life  of  this  world.  The  mightiest 
force  which  has  ever  moulded  human  society,  and 
is  still  moulding  it  to  undreamt-of  issues,  was  in  an 
age  of  opprobrium  and  universal  decay,  emerging 
from  the  midst  of  a  feeble  folk  held  in  universal 
contempt,  and  from  a  world  of  thought,  utterly 
foreign  to  every  known  school  of  heathen  opinion 
in  that  time.  We  had  better  note  what  these  words 
do  not  affirm,  as  well  as  their  positive  assertions, 
and  at  what  point  and  in  what  form  the  social 
question  emerges.  Indeed,  we  must  neglect 
nothing  which  will  differentiate  the  Christian 
position  from  other  social  philosophies,  and  pre- 
sent this  region  of  truth,  within  the  limitations, 
and  in  the  distinctive  glory  and  power,  which 
mark  it  off  from  the  unaided  wisdom  of  men. 

46 


THE   CHRISTIAN   CHARACTER     47 

As  we  brood  in  silent  thought  on  this  problem, 
till  the  whole  situation,  fronting  Paul,  rises  before 
us,  from  our  vantage-ground  of  eighteen  centuries, 
we  can  see,  in  the  restraints  laid  upon  these  early 
teachers,  no  less  than  in  their  positive  assertions, 
the  marks  of  a  Divine  Wisdom.  A  universal 
religion,  especially  one  so  fertilising  to  human 
thought,  and  so  productive  of  progress,  could  take 
no  other  line.  We  have  no  enunciation  of  specific 
social  theory,  no  committal  of  the  uninstructed 
throngs  in  apostolic  churches  to  distinctive  social 
and  political  action,  much  less  any  ukase  or 
manifesto  securing  the  Christian  strength  for  any 
political  interest ;  yet  with  all  this  wise  reticence, 
if  there  had  not  been  in  the  Kingdom  of  Christ  a 
wisdom  higher  than  that  of  the  world,  she  would 
have  compromised  herself  again  and  again  beyond 
retrieval. 

Let  the  reader  cast  back  his  memory  over  the 
eighteen  centuries,  and  recall  the  numberless  and 
very  diversified  relations  into  which  the  Church 
has  come,  to  all  sorts  of  rulers  and  every  variety 
of  civil  polity.  Let  him  remember,  too,  how  she 
herself  has  changed  amid  these  constantly  chang- 
ing circumstances, — her  manifold  and  enormous 
developments,  her  modifications  of  outward  forms, 


48        THE  SOCIAL  POTENCIES  OF 

her  ever-widening  conceptions  of  duty,  and  the 
uncountable  variety  of  her  public  tasks  and 
activities.  What  conceivable  statutes  could  have 
provided  for  the  healthful  and  unfettered  mutual 
action  of  divine  and  human,  spiritual  and  civil, 
through  all  these  past  and  the  remaining  centuries. 
Even  at  the  present  moment,  what  social  and 
political  code  could  be  drawn  up,  equally  appli- 
cable to  the  duty,  and  intercourse,  and  social 
activities,  of  Christians,  in  Britain,  in  Russia, 
among  African  braves,  and  in  the  Turkish 
Empire. 

Very  definite  in  doctrine,  bearing  on  the  soul's 
relation  to  God,  Christianity  leaves  a  wonderful 
liberty  to  the  new  spirit  of  brotherhood  which  it 
brought  out  into  the  world.  There  is  allowed  to 
the  Christian  character,  freedom  to  judge,  and  act, 
and  influence,  according  to  the  emergencies  of 
each  place  and  time.  And  this  not  by  default, 
but  of  express  principle.  Christianity  works  not 
by  regimentation,  but  by  character.  It  carries 
down  into  society  a  personal  life  rooted  in  the 
unseen,  with  new  horizons,  new  standards,  above 
all  a  new  spirit.  The  salt  arrests  corruption  and 
imparts  fresh  savour.  The  light  shines,  reflected 
from  the  organised  life  of  the  Church,  and  directly 


THE  CHRISTIAN   CHARACTER      49 

in  the  illumination  of  character  by  the  Holy 
Ghost.  And  so  on  all  social  levels,  within  all 
systems  of  human  society,  amid  all  degrees  of 
liberty  and  enlightenment,  Christianity  works  a 
pervasive  leaven,  a  steady,  unfailing,  lifting  influ- 
ence, felt  at  every  point  of  the  social  organism. 

We  can  now  discern,  in  the  very  plane  on  which 
these  great  words  of  Paul  move,  a  singular  wisdom. 
The  Christian  is  not  to  go  a-tilting  at  all  s6rts 
of  social  windmills.  His  primary  responsibility 
lies  elsewhere,  to  maintain,  through  ever-growing 
fellowship  with  Christ,  communion  with  God.  If  in 
any  time  of  persecution  or  tyranny,  the  external 
call  of  opportunity  to  deal  with  social  questions 
is  denied,  responsibility  ceases.  Although  even  in 
such  times,  when  civilised  life  is  utterly  in  abeyance, 
special  emergencies  arise,  which  bring  the  con- 
fessor and  martyr  with  magnificent  effect  into 
the  field  of  public  conduct.  In  general,  however, 
our  responsibilities  arise  as  our  opportunities 
come.  Without  seeking  of  their  own,  because  of 
incidents  in  the  life  of  their  community  or  con- 
troversies agitating  their  nation.  Christians  find 
themselves  involved,  let  us  suppose,  in  a  question 
of  truth,  raising  some  broad  issue  of  principle. 
Or  in  a  situation  of  great  complexity,  they  are 

D 


50       THE  SOCIAL  POTENCIES  OF 

driven  to  ask  what  would  be  honourable  conduct, 
or  where  lie  the  limits  of  relative  rights.  In  the 
providence  of  God  the  circumstances  arise ;  and 
as  they  arise  and  where  they  arise,  in  their  every 
bearing  of  cause,  and  exterior  conditions,  and 
consequences,  they  have  to  be  settled. 

But  to  advance  and  reach  at  once  the  main 
point.  When  the  circumstances  have  arisen  ; 
when  the  issue  of  principle  is  raised  ;  when  he 
is  driven  to  ask  what  is  the  course  of  honour  in 
the  Christian  sense,  or  what  rights  he  must  con- 
cede— in  such  and  similar  cases  how  is  he  to  act  ? 
Here  we  come  to  the  originality  of  the  utterance. 
Paul  points  to  no  external  rule,  but  turns  the 
man  in  on  himself  '  Whatsoever  things  are  true, 
etc. — let  him  think  of  these  things.'  Of  course  he 
has  the  facts  of  his  redeemed  experience,  the 
great  ethical  law  of  love,  what  he  himself  has 
come  to  see,  in  the  imitation  and  fellowship  of 
Christ.  But  for  the  particular  application  of 
these,  in  the  infinite  diversity  of  circumstances, 
he  is  thrown  in  upon  his  sanctified  judgment, 
illumined  by  the  Spirit  of  God.  Nor  is  there  the 
slightest  misgiving  on  his  part,  that  any  possible 
circumstances  might  arise,  in  which  a  Christian 
judgment  should  be  at  fault. 


THE  CHRISTIAN   CHARACTER      51 

Let  us  try  to  get  into  the  current  of  Paul's  feel- 
ing no  less  than  his  thought.  '  Whatsoever  things 
are  true,  etc.,'  whatever  matter  for  decision  in  any 
of  these  spheres  comes  up  before  you,  do  not  put 
it  away  from  you.  Seize  upon  it.  Occupy  the 
sphere  of  opportunity  which  is  thereby  provi- 
dentially open  to  you.  Bring  the  matter  up  into 
the  light  of  a  Christian  judgment,  to  the  test  of 
a  conscience  saturated  with  God's  Word,  and  in 
hourly  contact  with  Christ.  '  Know  ye  not  that 
we  shall  judge  angels  ?  How  much  more  things 
which  pertain  to  this  life?'  (i  Cor.  vi.  3).  The 
conclusion  at  which  we  arrive  may  be  tentative 
and  incomplete.  Still  limited  judgments,  when 
they  are  sincere,  often  strike  closer  home,  than 
those  that  are  more  abstract  and  general.  Christ 
wants  to  touch  men,  to  rouse  them,  to  stir  the 
hunger  for  better  things,  to  awaken  the  dormant 
sense  for  good  and  God,  by  forces  level  to  their 
comprehension,  and  close  to  their  hearts.  The 
limitations  and  one-sidedness  in  each  will  be 
corrected  by  others,  and  in  the  general  advance 
from  age  to  age. 

There  is  a  physiological  theory  which  has 
exerted  a  profound  influence  on  the  study  of 
living  creatures,  for  the  last  sixty  years.     It  is 


52        THE  SOCIAL  POTENCIES  OF 

called  the  cell- theory.  According  to  this  doctrine, 
all  animal  or  vegetable  structures  are  built  up  of 
minute  cells.  This  minute,  mostly  microscopic, 
object  is  a  highly  complex  corpuscle,  with  cell- 
wall,  nucleus,  etc.  Every  tissue  is  but  an 
aggregate  of  such  cells,  'and  every  organism 
subsists  only  by  means  of  the  reciprocal  action 
of  the  single  elementary  parts.' ^  From  these 
minute  centres  of  force,  in  their  actions  and 
reactions,  all  living  creatures  have  developed, 
taking  shape  under  pressure  of  external  con- 
ditions, in  the  struggle  for  existence.  And  the 
living  creation,  in  both  branches,  has  been  so 
mobile,  capable  of  endless  variety,  and  innumer- 
able forms  of  beauty  and  strength,  because  built 
up  from  these  vital  units. 

And  in  like  manner  the  great  organism  of 
Christian  civilisation,  in  infinite  variety  of  mani- 
festation, on  many  planes,  within  innumerable 
circles  of  influence,  and  developing  right  round 
the  sphere  of  human  interest,  amid  the  widening 
opportunities  of  successive  ages,  is  not  the  result 
of  a  cast-iron  social  scheme,  but  the  slow  forma- 
tion of  vital  units  of  consecrated  character,  in 
all  the  spiritual  men  and  women  who  have  con- 

^  See  Thomson's  Science  of  Life,  103. 


THE  CHRISTIAN   CHARACTER      53 

tributed  to  the  social  progress  of  mankind.  In 
the  spiritual  sphere,  Paul  saw,  eighteen  hundred 
years  ago,  that  all  true  progress  is  bio- centric, 
from  living  centres  outward,  the  same  truth  which 
Schleiden  and  Virchow  discerned,  with  regard  to 
animal  and  vegetable  life,  in  recent  times.  In 
both  spheres,  the  old  conception  of  a  great  net- 
work of  abstract  law  imposed  upon  matter  and 
spirit,  has  given  place  to  the  more  vital  and 
original  thought,  of  resilient  units  of  force  working 
from  within  to  a  living  creation. 

There  gathers  round  Paul's  simple  words,  accord- 
ingly, a  dignity,  a  marvellous  originality.  A  depth 
of  vision  is  discoverable  not  only  in  their  brevity 
but  in  their  form.  The  cell,  as  the  life-centre  of 
every  organism,  is  a  work  of  marvellous  skill. 
Pent  up  in  its  narrow  compass  are  the  forces,  by 
whose  interaction  the  life  of  the  whole  is  sus- 
tained. These  cells  are  so  built,  that  they  work  un- 
failingly in  certain  directions.  The  renewed  soul 
is  God's  spiritual  unit,  built  up,  as  we  have  seen, 
with  wonderful  care,  having  stored  up  original 
forces  which,  if  they  are  not  neutralised,  will  act 
out  in  specific  lines.  '  Let  him  think  of  these 
things,'  says  the  apostle.  Let  this  life  have  full 
honest   play   on   every   matter.      The  Christian 


54       THE  SOCIAL  POTENCIES  OF 

is  not  in  a  condition  of  pupilage ;  in  the  exercise 
of  Christian  wisdom,  he  must  decide  each  question 
on  its  merits.  Far  better  that  whatever  forces 
flow  into  society,  should  be  the  unforced  expres- 
sions of  genuine  conviction,  however  limited  or 
one-sided  they  may  be.  One  gleam  of  real  good 
has  an  incalculable  worth.  The  quiet  love  that 
steals  forth  in  the  aroma  of  kindly  deeds ;  the 
tender  conscience  that  educates  by  its  shrinking, 
yet  resolute,  utterance  to  a  finer  moral  sensibility  ; 
the  purity  that  rebukes  grossness  as  by  the  stroke 
of  a  sword ;  the  self-sacrifice  that  melts  and 
subdues ;  these  are  worth  waiting  for  and  waiting 
for  long.  When  they  come,  they  are  creative  as 
light,  new  positive  constituents  of  human  thought 
and  feeling,  to  which  the  race  will  slowly  grow  up, 
from  which,  amid  all  convulsions,  men  will  never 
wholly  go  back  or  fall  away. 

From  all  which  we  gain  a  further  lesson,  as  to 
this  new  force  of  spiritual  character.  Not  only 
does  it  grow  up  into  Christ, — every  fibre  of 
faculty  inwoven  with  the  will  and  person  of 
Christ, — but  thus  rooted,  and  drawing  the  riches 
of  the  divine  nature  into  itself,  the  renewed  soul 
has  a  heightened  power  of  adaptation,  and  de- 
velops faculties  to  meet  every  variety  of  human 


THE  CHRISTIAN  CHARACTER      55 

circumstance  and  need.  Of  course  natural  indi- 
viduality, and  the  diversities  of  gift  and  aptitude 
obtaining  among  men,  underlie  and  mightily  aid 
this  spiritual  development.  But  the  Christian 
spirit,  the  forces  characteristic  of  this  new 
spiritual  unit,  carry  this  development  to  degrees 
and  regions  that  are  new.  The  general  potency 
of  renewed  life  develops  specific  aptitudes  of 
.spiritual  service.  The  original  divine  endow- 
ment of  the  pound  becomes  through  usury  ten 
pounds,  giving  rise  to  faculties  of  prayer,  of 
sympathy,  of  teaching,  of  administration,  and  so 
forth. 

And  over  and  above  the  common  blossoming 
of  gifts  for  common  ends,  providential  circum- 
stances bring  into  every  life  some  distinguishing 
note  of  power,  by  which  that  life  stands  out  on 
a  vantage-ground  of  moral  influence.  A  fallen 
friend  kindles  in  one,  a  burning  passion  for  social 
reform.  A  personal  sorrow  and  bereavement 
consecrate  and  liberate  John  Bright  for  a  public 
career.  Sometimes  a  seeming  chance  circumstance 
directs  an  obscure  and  humble  life,  into  the  sphere 
in  which  it  wins  unlimited  notoriety  and  influ- 
ence. One  has  but  to  fall  back  in  quiet  thought, 
and  survey  the  circuit  of  one's  observation  and 


56       THE  SOCIAL  POTENCIES  OF 

knowledge,  in  this  regard,  to  discern,  in  what  to 
many  seems  the  fortuitous  concourse  of  circum- 
stances, an  elaborate  discipline  of  personality, 
what  we  might  call  a  gymnasium  of  the  human 
spirit.  Looking  at  the  great  crystal  column  of 
the  fountain,  breaking  at  top  into  the  capricious 
spray  of  foam,  and  floating  spray,  and  clashing 
rain,  one  forgets  the  pressure  upon  every  drop 
in  that  ascending  stream,  to  produce  that  result. 
And  so  men  do  not  realise  the  energy  of  con- 
secrated character  being  spent,  every  day,  in 
arresting  evil,  in  shaming  vice  into  secrecy,  in 
maintaining  a  high  standard  of  public  virtue, 
in  checking  misdirections  of  vanity,  or  licence, 
or  prurient  curiosity ;  and  in  maintaining  lofty 
traditions  of  social  service,  the  full  play  of 
generous  impulse,  and  self-sacrificing  devotion  to 
the  common  good,  which  mark  the  life  of  our 
great  civic  communities.  Yet  though  many 
secondary  influences  contribute  to  that  result, 
which,  in  the  persons  originating  them,  cannot  be 
directly  identified  with  Christian  character  and 
the  Christian  spirit,  yet  are  they  borne  on  in 
great  social  currents,  which  Christian  character 
set  in  motion,  and  these  continue  vital,  domi- 
nant,   irresistible,    because    of   the    innumerable 


THE  CHRISTIAN   CHARACTER      57 

pulses    of   Christian    character    still    supporting 
them. 

And  yet  we  have  not  formed  anything  like  an 
adequate  idea  of  these  potencies, — the  expansive, 
and  multiplying,  and  resilient  energies  of  those 
units  of  spiritual  character, — which  are  the  tissue- 
building  forces  of  Christian  civilisation.  Many 
thinkers  speak  and  write,  as  if  our  religion  had 
superinduced  some  new  altruistic  feelings  and 
customs,  upon  the  stable  and  radically  unchanged 
principles  and  institutions  of  human  society. 
They  fail  to  recognise,  how  largely  these  units 
of  spiritual  character,  working  not  alone,  but  in 
natures  the  products  of  their  time,  have  changed 
the  foundations  of  that  society.  Magnificent  in 
the  details  of  her  organisations,  that  old  civilisa- 
tion which  Christianity  superseded  was  dying  for 
lack  of  principles  and  ideals.  The  Christian, 
living  in  a  new  world,  fired  with  spiritual  ideals, 
and  surrendered  to  principles  having  not  only 
the  moral  sanction  of  right,  but  the  sacredness 
of  religion — in  the  measure  in  which  he  influenced 
the  family,  society,  and  the  state,  undergirt  them 
with  new  conceptions,  which  eliminated  much, 
modified  much,  and  permeated  with  a  new  spirit 
all  that  remained. 


58        THE  SOCIAL   POTENCIES  OF 

Every  one  admits,  that  when  the  hulk  of  that 
old  civilisation  was  breaking  up,  and  great  deluges 
of  savage  invasion,  sent  the  disrupted  fragments 
adrift,  to  clash  against  and  confound  each  other 
in  one  universal  ruin,  the  centripetal  force  that 
drew  them  together  again  was  the  Church  and 
Kingdom  of  Christ.  But  the  fact  that  the  arrested 
rupture  became  not  a  mere  reconstitution,  but  a 
transformation,  and  issued  in  new  social  growths 
that,  whatever  their  defects,  carried  within  them 
the  possibilities  of  higher  developments,  was 
owing  not  merely  to  some  administrative  pope,  or 
new  ecclesiastical  machinery.  It  arose  from  the 
circumstance  that  what  breasted  the  forces  of 
decay  and  convulsion  was  a  force  of  incorruptible 
hope  in  every  living  Christian,  which  nothing 
could  deflect  or  daunt,  which  saw  in  all  sorrow 
an  opportunity  of  service,  which  could  lay  hold 
on  a  Stronger  than  the  strongest  in  every  con- 
vulsion, which  discerned  beyond  present  wrong, 
the  promise  of  a  larger  right,  and  served  the 
ideal,  bringing  forth  blossoms  of  beauty,  laying 
foundations  for  better  things  to  be,  amid  the 
ruins  of  the  past. 

And  in  this  connection,  looking  at  the  problem 
of  Christian    history    from    this    individualistic 


THE   CHRISTIAN   CHARACTER      59 

standpoint,  we  find  great  interest  even  in  those 
growths  of  Christian  character  which  failed  to 
perpetuate  themselves,  which  proved  one-sided, 
or  lacking  in  essential  elements.  Every  writer 
of  primers  can  tell  us,  how  chivalry  degenerated, 
and  why  the  Crusades  failed,  and  on  account  of 
what  monasticism,  despite  a  series  of  splendid 
beginnings,  grew  to  be  a  moral  nuisance.  But 
the  potencies  of  character  which  found  expression 
in  these  movements,  judged  by  the  standards  of 
the  past,  reveal,  with  whatever  misjudgment,  new 
Christian  elements  of  singular  beauty  and  force. 
Those  were  not  so  much  blunders  as  beginnings, 
containing  precious  elements,  living  and  to  live 
in  the  kingdom  of  God,  but  mingled  in  these 
particular  movements  with  crudities  and  cor- 
ruptions, which  led  to  their  defeat. 

Then,  because  the  units  of  force  are  those  ex- 
pansive, multiplying,  resilient  energies  of  sancti- 
fied character,  they  refuse  to  acquiesce  in  failure. 
They  produce  reactions  of  conviction  and  trust 
and  sacrifice,  originating  new  ideals  and  resolves, 
preparing  the  way  for  new  days  of  power  and 
opportunity,  long  before  they  have  begun  to  dawn. 
For  instance,  the  absolutism  of  the  papacy,  crush- 
ing in  so  many  directions  the  master  instincts  of 


6o       THE  SOCIAL  POTENCIES  OF 

Christian  character,  stirred  thinkers  to  formulate 
the  inherent  rights  of  civil  government,  as  a 
dominium  given  by  God  ;  threw  mystics  back  on 
personal  fellowship  with  God ;  and  in  a  word, 
raised  up  many  to  prepare  the  foundations  of 
that  Reformation  movement,  in  which  clearer 
consciousness  of  our  more  direct  communion 
with  God  in  Christ,  introduced  Christian  char- 
acter not  merely  to  an  increased  number,  but  to 
a  new  plane  of  social  activities,  creating  modern 
civilisation. 

Nor  is  the  task  of  these  social  potencies  of  the 
Christian  character  yet  accomplished.  The  whole 
tone  of  thought  in  the  present  day,  the  influences 
good  and  bad  at  work  in  the  world,  the  massing 
of  humanity  into  ever-enlarging  aggregates,  the 
command  of  material  resources  on  a  wholly  un- 
precedented scale,  the  communities  of  thought 
and  feeling  growing  up  among  the  workers  of  all 
nations,  the  opportunities  for  mutual  comparison 
and  stimulus  through  the  daily  press — all  these 
and  many  other  circumstances,  which  might  be 
mentioned,  point  forward  to  vaster  social  pro- 
blems than  we  have  yet  seen.  And  in  grappling 
with  these,  Christian  character,  in  the  whole 
range  of  the  potencies,  maintained  and  developed 


THE  CHRISTIAN   CHARACTER      6i 

by  the  Holy  Spirit  within  the  soul,  will  be  taxed 
as  never  before,  in  the  effort  to  breathe  into  these 
a  Christian  spirit,  mould  them  to  moral  uses,  and 
compel  them  to  subserve  the  highest  ends  of  the 
kingdom  of  God. 

Mayhap,  in  the  counsels  of  Him  who  sees  the 
end  from  the  beginning,  Christians  are  being  led 
to  look  at  the  subject  of  Christianity  in  relation 
to  the  social  life  of  the  world,  that,  with  God's 
blessing  and  by  His  direction,  they  may  mass 
their  resources,  gather  up  the  fragments  of  waste 
energy,  and  eliminate  unproductive  elements. 
Mayhap  they  are  being  drawn,  from  the  multi- 
plied distinctions  of  the  past,  to  unite  in  simpler 
surrender  and  fuller  consecration  round  the 
Divine  fountains  of  power,  receiving,  while  they 
meditate  and  pray,  a  fresh  baptism  of  the  self- 
oblivious  and  self-obliterating  love  of  the  crucified 
Christ ! 


CHAPTER    V 

THE   SPHERES   OF   SOCIAL   DUTY 

But  one  task  remains,  before  we  proceed,  in  the 
second  part,  to  an  illustrative  treatment  of  the 
working  of  these  potencies  in  the  actual  life  of 
the  world.  How  does  the  apostle  classify  the 
spheres  of  social  duty?  Here  we  have  a  re- 
markable depth  and  originality,  corresponding 
to  the  profound  view  which  Paul  has  given  of 
the  redeemed  personality, — brought  into  wonder- 
ful oneness  and  communion  with  God  in  Christ, 
and  educated  (in  the  school  of  experience)  into 
manifold  potencies  of  social  service. 

At  this  point  we  discern,  from  his  view  of 
duty,  what  is  evident  enough  in  his  doctrinal 
teaching,  that  Paul  takes  the  profoundest  view 
of  the  place  and  work  of  Christianity.  Our 
religion  is  a  new  spirit  breathed  into  existence 
— not  however  as  something  brought  in  from 
without,  but  as  a  discovery  from  within  of  the 
essential  meaning  of  all  existence,  at  once  in  its 

62 


THE  SPHERES  OF  SOCIAL  DUTY    63 

original  and  end.  The  coiners  of  the  new-fangled 
word  altruism,  and  men  like  the  late  Professor 
Huxley,  hold  that  life  is  a  struggle  for  existence. 
The  law  of  living  things  is  ceaseless  conflict,  in 
which  the  weakest  goes  to  the  wall,  and  the 
strong  or  well-advantaged  perpetuate  themselves. 
However,  when  these  teachers  come  up  to  the 
level  of  man  as  a  moral  being,  they  find,  as 
Huxley  taught  in  the  Romanes  Lecture^  that  this 
law  of  merciless  self-assertion  would  never  suffice. 
Human  intelligence  brings  in,  even  in  a  selfish 
interest,  another  principle,  a  benevolent  interest 
in  others,  in  order  to  conserve  the  moral  gains  of 
all  the  ages,  and  secure  their  perpetuation. 

With  that  clumsy  patchwork,  in  which  man 
comes  in  to  save  Nature  from  a  kind  of  ethical 
suicide,  Christianity  in  Paul's  view  has  nothing 
to  do.  This  new  Spirit  is  not  something  imposed 
upon  existence,  but  the  discovery  of  the  central 
soul  of  all  existence.  To  change  the  figure,  the 
bed-rock  of  this  universe  is  neither  matter  nor 
force,  but  personality.  And  in  Christ,  the  self- 
existent  Personality,  in  and  by  whom  all  worlds 
and  orders  of  being  exist,  stands  self-discovered 
in  His  spirit,  purpose,  and  end.  And  more,  in 
Christ,  men  come  into  union  with  that  Personality, 


64    THE  SPHERES  OF  SOCIAL  DUTY 

by  the  marvellous  blending  of  individualities, 
which  at  length  we  described.  In  this  personal 
union,  then,  we  are  at  the  centre  of  knowledge 
as  of  life.  The  reason  for  the  existence  of  the 
material  creation  ;  the  general  purposes  under- 
lying its  scope  and  forms,  its  appearances  and 
processes ;  the  rationale  of  history,  and  the 
explanation  of  the  mysteries  of  existence ; — all 
lie  in  that  unveiling  of  His  essential  end,  given 
by  God,  in  connection  with  the  incarnation  and 
atonement  of  His  Son.  That  is  the  divine, 
essential  truth,  on  which  all  other  true  things, 
which  have  been  called  into  existence  to  give 
effect  to  His  purpose,  hang. 

(i.)  Christianity  not  only  brings  a  new  creation 
to  the  soul,  but  introduces  the  renewed  soul  into 
a  new  world,  or  rather  into  the  old  world  put 
upon  altered  foundations.  Everything  stands 
related  to  God's  purpose  in  Christ ;  and  anything 
within  that  vast  circuit  may  affect  our  endeavour 
to  fulfil  this  spiritual  purpose.  Our  horizon,  then, 
is  no  more  confined  than  the  purpose  of  God 
discovered  in  His  universe.  The  foundation  on 
which  He  stands  with  us  is  a  foundation  of  truth ; 
and  the  only  foundation  on  which  we  can  stand 
before  Him   is   one  of   truth.     *  Whatsoever 


THE   SPHERES   OF  SOCIAL  DUTY    65 

THINGS  ARE  TRUE,'  says  Paul.  We  stand  com- 
mitted as  Christians  to  a  particular  view  of  the 
meaning  and  end  of  all  existence,  and  we  must 
vindicate  that  in  every  court  of  reason.  We  are 
thrown  upon  the  waves  of  a  never-ceasing  con- 
troversy, and  are  compelled  to  uphold  not  only 
the  legitimacy,  but  the  reality,  and  the  supremacy, 
of  the  spiritual  conception  of  the  universe,  given 
us  in  Christ. 

Verily,  Christ  came  '  not  to  send  peace  on 
earth  but  a  sword,'  but  in  nothing  has  He  put 
a  greater  honour  on  His  truth  and  His  people. 
In  no  age  of  her  history  has  the  Church  of  God 
been  an  exotic,  growing  apart  in  a  sequestered 
spot.  She  has  mingled  with  all  thought  as  with 
all  life.  She  has  been  in  the  heart  of  all  the  most 
vital  controversies.  And  from  the  conflict  of 
rival  intelligences,  she  has  won  a  clearer  con- 
sciousness of  her  own  great  principles,  and  has 
seen  them  in  sharper  definition,  from  those  which 
were  opposed. 

Only  gradually  has  the  Church  entered, — if 
even  to-day  she  realises  to  the  full — the  greatness 
of  this  position.  In  the  early  centuries  Christian 
thinkers  realised  vividly  the  supremacy  of  the 
spiritual  view  over  all  subordinate  fields  of  know- 
E 


66    THE  SPHERES  OF  SOCIAL  DUTY 

ledge.  But  because  of  the  strong  ecclesiastical 
feeling  which  marked  those  centuries,  and  espe- 
cially the  identification  of  Western  Christianity 
with  one  specific  organisation,  that  unquestioned 
truth  of  the  supremacy  of  the  spiritual  became 
confounded  with  another,  and  very  different,  and 
really  false,  assumption.  Ecclesiastics  aspired 
to  control  all  spheres  of  knowledge — science, 
philosophy,  government,  economics.  It  took 
centuries  to  overthrow  these  pretensions,  where 
they  are  overthrown.  At  this  very  hour,  the 
Catholics  want  a  university  in  Ireland,  where 
a  priest-controlled  science  and  philosophy  shall 
be  taught.  They  cannot  trust  their  sons  to  the 
unfettered  influence  of  truth. 

The  whole  conception,  however,  on  which  this 
spiritual  tyranny  in  the  sphere  of  the  intellect 
is  based,  is  a  materialisation  and  depravation  of 
a  great  unquestionable  principle.  The  authority 
of  the  spiritual,  is  the  authority  of  truth.  Coming 
into  union  with  God  in  Christ,  we  have  discovered 
the  master-relation  of  God,  to  all  the  fields  of 
His  working.  Here  is  the  clue  to  the  divine 
purpose  and  end  of  the  whole.  The  various 
kingdoms  of  truth,  however  particular  and  sub- 
ordinate they  may  be,  are  His,  no  less  than  the 


THE  SPHERES  OF  SOCIAL  DUTY    6; 

spiritual,  in  which  He  has  discovered  His  own 
relation  to  all.  If  we  would  know  the  glorious 
fulness  of  the  divine  purpose,  these  kingdoms 
must  be  studied  freely  and  reverently,  in  the 
light  which  they  bring,  according  to  the  laws 
by  which  they  have  been  built  up.  And  so  the 
spirit  of  religious  reverence,  is  the  spirit  of  true 
science,  *man  knows  and  knows  only  what  he 
observes.'  In  every  kingdom  of  material  nature, 
in  the  science  of  soul,  in  metaphysics,  in  all 
branches  of  social  philosophy,  the  supreme  in- 
terest is,  what  is  the  truth  as  discovered  by  the 
most  exact  means  of  research. 

Recognising  these  undoubted  truths,  the  lead- 
ing thinkers  of  recent  centuries  have  gone  in  an 
opposite  direction  to  that  of  the  early  Church. 
Giving  these  kingdoms  of  truth  their  unde- 
niable rights,  they  have  deemed  it  lawful,  to 
rule  the  spiritual  out  of  many  spheres.  They 
have  most  unwarrantably  confined  the  spiritual 
to  the  realm  of  the  conscience  and  will,  as  a 
species  of  soul-discipline  or  mystic  absorption  in 
the  divine.  That  can  only  be  done,  however,  by 
mutilating  the  Christian  creed,  and  emasculating 
the  Christian  spirit.  The  Christian  has  to  do 
with  all  truth,  because  he  is  spiritually  related  to 


68    THE  SPHERES  OF  SOCIAL  DUTY 

Him  who  is  the  Original  of  all  truth;  and  his 
destiny  is  included  in  a  world-purpose,  which 
embraces  it  all.  He  cannot  alter  the  facts  which 
come  up  to  him  from  the  lower  spheres.  At 
times  they  may  seem  to  be  opposed,  to  the 
meaning  and  end  of  existence  as  discovered  in 
God's  purpose,  revealed  through  Christ.  The 
spiritual,  however,  stands  on  its  own  order  of 
facts  and  experiences,  and  cannot  be  ruled  out 
by  the  material,  any  more  than  the  material 
by  the  spiritual.  Truth  must  triumph.  And  a 
hundred  times,  extreme  material  theories  have 
given  way,  and  the  latest  researches  have  dis- 
covered, a  marvellously  developed  harmony 
between  nature  and  the  divine. 

*  Earth  by  heaven  and  heaven  by  changeful  earth 
Illustrated  and  mutually  endeared.' 

And  all  this  is  not  only  a  concern  for  truth, 
but  for  religion.  Quite  independently  of  theories, 
the  Church,  for  very  life's  sake,  has  had  to  go 
into  questions  of  truth,  against  contrary  opinions 
of  heathen,  and  half-instructed  Christian,  and 
alien  thinkers.  At  the  very  time  when  the  apostles 
were  writing,  the  Christians  were  exercised  about 
man,  his  inherent  worth,  what  was  due  to  him 
what  was  inconsistent  with  his  nature  and  destiny 


THE  SPHERES  OF  SOCIAL  DUTY    69 

and  found  themselves  traversing  opinions  in  many 
fields  most  surely  believed  by  the  heathen  around. 
A  short  while  after,  confronting  the  dreams  of  the 
gnostics,  they  had  to  think  out  a  doctrine  of 
creation,  satisfying  to  the  facts  of  their  Christian 
experience,  as  well  as  to  such  natural  knowledge 
as  they  possessed. 

And  what  has  occupied  the  Christian  peoples 
through  past  centuries,  is  with  even  greater  in- 
tensity occupying  us  to-day.  With  what  anxious 
and  long-continued  conflict,  have  Christian  men, 
in  perfect  loyalty  to  natural  fact,  but  also  con- 
cerned to  maintain  spiritual  reality,  fought  for 
a  view  of  this  material  universe  as  subject  to 
law,  which  yet  allowed  the  free  action  of  God  in 
providence,  and  the  unfettered  outpouring  of  the 
spiritual  life  in  prayer.  And  at  this  moment, 
are  not  thinkers  reshaping  our  political  economy, 
lifting  it  up  from  a  purely  selfish  and  material 
basis,  and  introducing  those  ethical  principles  and 
considerations,  which  may  bring  it  into  line  with 
a  Christian  view  of  life? 

Enough,  mayhap,  has  been  stated,  to  show  the 
magnificence  of  this  sphere,  in  which  the  renewed 
character  is  called  to  exercise  itself.  The  victory 
of  Christianity  is  not  an  isolated  triumph,  but  the 


yo    THE  SPHERES  OF  SOCIAL  DUTY 

bringing  of  all  truth,  as  of  all  life,  under  law  to 
Him.  And  now  it  is  worth  while  remarking,  ere 
we  pass  to  the  second  element  in  this  classifica- 
tion, that  peculiar  interest  attaches  to  this  line  of 
thought  at  the  present  hour.  Men  are  coming 
to  see  that  not  below,  in  matter,  but  above  in 
Personality,  have  we  the  fountain  of  existence, — 
the  synthesis  that  brings  the  whole  world  of  being 
in  its  boundless  diversity,  into  unity  of  source  and 
aim.  The  soul  of  this  universe  is  not  material 
necessity,  but  ethical  Purpose — personal  Will. 

(ii)  So  much,  then,  for  the  first  category,  that 
of  the  true.  When  we  leave  the  region  of  fact 
for  that  of  conduct,  we  find  an  equal  profundity 
and  justness  of  view.  We  have  no  abstract 
theories,  undergirding  some  peculiar  views  of 
right.  Paul  founds  upon  facts  of  life  and  ex- 
perience, and  so  he  sees  the  problem  of  social 
conduct  in  the  true  light,  and  takes  up  the  parts 
of  that  problem  in  the  proper  order. 

Every  man  is  born  into,  and — the  period  of 
infancy  past — wakens  up  to  find  himself  in,  a 
network  of  relations.  He  owes  existence  and  all 
the  boons  of  existence,  to  parents,  friends,  teachers, 
rulers,  and  so  out  into  ever  -  widening  circles 
of  help  and  influence,  covering  past  as  well  as 


THE  SPHERES   OF  SOCIAL  DUTY    71 

present — those  who  have  vanished  as  those  who 
remain.  In  order  of  actual  experience,  then,  a 
man's  first  problem  is  not  his  rights,  but  his 
duties.  He  finds  his  feet  in  this  universe,  he 
rises  or  falls  in  the  scale  of  moral  being,  ac- 
cording to  the  spirit  in  which  he  meets  these 
obligations,  and  seeks  to  discharge  them.  He 
takes  rank,  as  a  contributory  to  the  well-being 
of  the  race,  in  that  measure.  And  therefore 
the  problem  of  what  is  due  to  him — of  his  own 
personal  rights — arises  out  of  this  earlier  problem. 
All  that  is  true  on  the  ground  of  nature,  and 
quite  apart  from  Christianity.  But  human  selfish- 
ness has  so  forced  human  conduct  aside  from  its 
natural  course,  that  for  millions,  the  question  of 
right  has  been  obliterated,  and  the  law  of  the 
strong  arm,  the  doctrine  that  might  is  right,  has 
taken  its  place.  And  where,  in  reaction  against 
the  desolations  of  unbridled  power,  men  have 
reasserted  the  right,  it  has  been  in  a  maimed, 
stunted,  and  half- articulate  form.  They  have 
built  a  kind  of  party-wall,  rudely  composed,  at 
the  spurring  of  necessity,  of  all  sorts  of  materials, 
to  keep  out  the  deluge.  Thus  we  have  rights  of 
possession,  rights  of  prescription,  rights  having 
protection  of  positive  statute, — but  without  any 


72    THE  SPHERES  OF  SOCIAL  DUTY 

ground  of  principle  or  foundation  of  real  right 
underlying  them. 

To  have  struck  in  with  a  new  all-resolving 
principle  of  real  right  into  the  thickets  of  human 
statute,  would  simply  have  brought  about  at  once 
the  universal  overturn.  Besides,  that  is  not  the 
proper  order.  Rights  are  the  issues  or  conse- 
quences of  discharged  obligations.  Christ  leaves 
those  questions  of  mutual  right  to  rectify  them- 
selves, and  brings  in  a  new,  loftier,  more  refined, 
and  all-encompas&ing  sense  of  obligation.  He  thus 
leads  men  back,  on  a  higher  plane,  to  the  original 
and  true  idea  of  life,  as  in  debt  for  obligations 
received,  and  as  bound  to  loftier  traditions  of 
social  service,  from  which  would  spring  larger, 
more  human,  and  more  fundamental  conceptions 
of  right. 

'Whatsoever  things  are  honourable,' 
says,  and  more  justly,  the  Revised  Version.  The 
Christian  is  bound  not  merely  to  honesty,  but  to 
a  high  and  scrupulous  sense  of  honour,  because 
of  the  great  sacrifice  of  free  love  offered  for  Him. 
In  the  highest  interests  of  men,  against  their 
corrupt  and  degraded  self-will,  Christ  gave  Him- 
self that  it  might  be  possible  for  them  to  reach 
the  ideal  good  for  which  they  were  made.     In 


THE  SPHERES  OF  SOCIAL  DUTY    73 

receiving  this  priceless  blessing,  Christians  were 
brought  under  a  new  ethical  standard  for  them- 
selves. The  very  seeing  of  this  lofty  good  in 
Christ  compelled  them  to  imitate  it.  Obligation 
to  others  for  benefit  received,  and  duty  towards 
them,  mount  by  equal  steps.  They  were  not  to 
wait  till  hotiesty  constrained.  In  a  fine  sense  of 
honour,  they  were  to  show  themselves  forward, 
to  discover  and  bind  duty  on  themselves,  for  the 
sake  of  Him  who  did  so  much  for  them.  His 
motives  were  to  be  sufficient  for  them, — oppor- 
tunity being  a  reason  for  service  and  need  an 
argument.  This  was  the  new  Christian  sense  of 
honour,  kindled  in  men  by  Christ,  and  occupying 
the  whole  sphere  of  conduct ;  not  only  to  reaffirm 
the  old  supremacy  of  duty,  but  to  carry  the  soul 
forward  to  a  higher  and  completer  service  of  man. 
(iii)  And  springing  from  this  sense  of  honour, 
so  swift  to  realise  duty  to  others,  on  account  of 
service  received,  came  the  sense  of  right — the 
judgment  of  what  was  due  to  the  worker  because 
of  service.  Instead  of  mere  legal  and  prescriptive 
senses  of  right,  there  grew  up  the  far  deeper  and 
only  true  conception  of  right,  arising  from,  and 
existing  according  to  the  measure  and  kind  of 
service;  and  with  this  came  a  positive  personal 


74    THE  SPHERES  OF  SOCIAL  DUTY 

desire  to  realise  what  heart  and  conscience  felt 
to  be  just  in  every  relation.  There  began  to 
exist  and  develop  a  moral  life  of  society,  beyond 
the  sweep  of  military  power  or  the  civil  arm. 
'  Whatsoever  things  are  just  '  became  a 
concern  to  each  individual  Christian. 

And  not  only  in  the  narrow  sense  «f  conform- 
ing to  legal  obligation.  Christ's  large  conception 
of  loving  service  to  His  people  woke  a  sense  of 
honour  as  to  what  was  due  to  Him  and  to  all  men 
for  His  sake.  A  whole  new  world  of  rights,  in  the 
eye  of  love,  rose  before  them  ;  since,  as  unworthy 
they  were  loved,  misery  became  a  claim,  blind- 
ness an  obligation.  They  must  seek  to  draw 
those  for  whom  Christ  died,  and  help  to  better 
things,  those  whom  God  made  capable  of  a  great 
destiny.  They  must  pay  to  posterity  the  great 
heritage  they  have  received  from  their  ancestors. 
In  every  field,  under  the  spirit  of  Christianity,  the 
recognised  rights  of  men  are  multiplying,  being 
freely  conceded,  or  stoutly  fought  for,  on  grounds 
of  duty  that  have  their  root  in  the  spirit  of 
Christ.  In  this  sense,  there  is  not  a  human  being 
on  earth,  perhaps,  who  has  not  in  some  sort,  felt 
the  touch  of  Christ, — in  vanished  slaveries  and 
slave-trades,   which  civilised  nations   considered 


THE   SPHERES   OF  SOCIAL  DUTY    75 

that  it  was  due  to  them  to  repress  ;  in  the  extir- 
pation of  savage  cruelties ;  in  the  reduction  of 
tribal  wars;  in  the  introduction  of  a  primitive 
sense  of  order  or  of  a  rudimentary  knowledge. 
Ambition  may  pervert  and  degrade  this  world- 
subduing  spirit,  but  never  originate  it.  A  sense 
of  duty  to  the  race,  of  rights  in  men  our  brothers, 
which  we  recognise  and  try  to  meet,  is  prompting 
the  self-denying  actions  of  thousands,  on  the 
frontier  lines  of  civilisation. 

'  Take  up  the  white  man's  burden,— 
In  patience  to  abide 
To  veil  the  threat  of  terror 
And  check  the  show  of  pride, 
By  open  speech  and  simple 
An  hundred  times  made  plain, 
To  seek  another's  profit 
And  work  another's  gain.' 

(iv)  What  magnificent  spheres  are  these  which 
open  before  the  Christian  personality — the  sphere 
of  the  true,  the  sphere  of  conduct,  the  sphere 
of  relative  rights !  What  an  education  for  the 
Christian  character  in  meeting  and  solving  all 
the  problems  rising  in  these  three  fields !  Be- 
cause of  relations  to  God,  and  under  pressure  of 
obligation  to  Him,  the  Christian  comes  in  as  a 
free  man,  to  realise  the   highest   ideal  of  good 


;6    THE  SPHERES  OF  SOCIAL  DUTY 

along  every  possible  line,  in  every  sphere.  For 
all  this  social  activity,  he  owns  a  divine  authority, 
and  may  draw  upon  a  divine  power.  The  inertia 
and  disintegrating  power  of  self,  has  given  way 
to  an  opposite  force  of  love. 

And  so  the  Christian  comes,  in  a  thoroughly 
original  way,  into  a  sphere  which  has  never  been 
so  occupied  in  any  other  system  :  '  WHATSOEVER 
THINGS  ARE  PURE.'  There  is  something  in  God, 
and  in  human  nature,  when  Christ  has  revealed 
its  original  brightness,  which  is  not  resolvable  into 
obligation  or  rights, — the  appetency  of  a  person- 
ality for  another  personality,  which  we  call  love. 
In  love,  obligation  and  rights  are  subsumed,  but 
love  is  greater  than  they.  Moved  from  within  by 
a  subtle  feeling,  which  is  nothing  to  those  who 
have  not  felt,  and  everything  to  those  who  have, 
the  man  crowns  the  beloved  object,  not  only  with 
all  his  possessions,  but  with  his  entire  self,  trans- 
figured in  the  giving  to  something  far  more 
precious  than  he  had  ever  known  in  himself 
before.  And  the  beloved  object  takes  all  those 
possessions  which  were  dearer  than  life, — parents, 
friends,  home,  mastery  of  herself,  liberty,  honour 
— and  sacrifices  them,  as  if  they  were  nothing,  on 
the  altar  of  love. 


THE  SPHERES  OF  SOCIAL  DUTY    ^^ 

That — degraded  often,  continually  perverted 
and  turned  into  the  eating  cancer  of  unutterable 
pollution — is  nevertheless,  the  breaking  forth  in 
man,  of  that  which  is  most  truly  sovereign  and 
original  in  God.  And  in  Christ,  the  revealer  of 
God,  we  see  what  this  union  may  become.  In  His 
own  infinite  sacrifice  for  man,  He  has  invested 
human  nature  with  an  immeasurable  worth. 
Crowned  with  such  a  destiny,  the  object  of  a 
divine  affection  so  intense,  each  human  soul,  to 
a  reverent  man,  is  sacrosanct.  He  can  have,  and 
use  that  love,  only  in  harmony  with  that  higher 
allegiance.  And  so,  something  new  in  the  life,  of 
the  world,  has  come  to  permeate  the  relation 
of  the  sexes, — a  spirit  of  purity, — which,  working 
from  the  centre  of  this  realm  of  feeling,  has  done 
more  than  aught  else  to  elevate  the  social  life 
of  mankind. 

Right  through  all  this  classification,  we  have 
been  ringing  the  changes  on  one  central  thought 
— personality,  with  its  moral  and  spiritual  creation 
of  character.  The  world  of  conduct  is  the  world 
of  personal  relations,  into  which  we  enter,  and 
where  we  find  ourselves,  as  we  discharge  the 
duties  arising  out  of  these  relations,  discovering 
thus  our  own  place,  and  function,  and  rights,  and 


7^    THE  SPHERES  OF  SOCIAL  DUTY 

the  rights  of  others  to  us.  But  the  efflorescence 
of  personality  is  in  that  crowning  act, — the  whole 
being  losing  itself  to  another,  and  finding  itself  in 
another — as  bringing  a  lofty  unselfishness  into 
life,  reinforcing  all  the  other  impulses  which  we 
have  described. 

(v)  Now,  because  this  world  is  a  world  of 
personality,  beauty  attaches  to  it, — to  everything 
in  human  emotions  and  relations,  and  to  the 
world  in  which  these  are  being  evolved.  And 
so  the  next  sphere  into  which  the  Christian 
character  is  led,  both  as  a  creator  and  a  re- 
cipient, is  that  of  the  beautiful :  *  WHATSOEVER 
THINGS  ARE  LOVELY.'  Though  further  removed 
from  the  stern  actualities  of  life,  this  is  not  an 
unreal  sphere  for  the  potencies  of  Christian 
character.  The  material  is  the  shadow  of  the 
spiritual,  nature  is  a  mirror  of  things  divine,  a 
prophecy  of  things  to  be.  In  architecture,  in 
sculpture,  in  art,  in  poetry,  the  Christian  spirit 
has  taken  forms  of  consummate  beauty,  which 
have  set  up  new  ideals  for  imitation,  and  pro- 
foundly influenced  millions  of  mankind.  And 
still  through  the  beautiful  in  character,  achieve- 
ment, sacrifice ;  through  art  helping  the  soul  to 
a   larger   consciousness   of   itself;    and    through 


THE  SPHERES  OF  SOCIAL  DUTY    79 

nature  playing  with  a  thousand  subtle  touches  on 
every  sensibility,  the  human  soul  is  receiving  an 
education  of  passing  worth. 

(vi)  Bishop   Lightfoot  tells  us  that  instead  of 
the  phrase  *  of  good  report/  we  should  read  '  fair 
speaking '  or  '  winning  and  attractive.'     Whatever 
reading  we  adopt,  we  are   brought  into   a   new 
sphere  of  vast  importance.     We  have  been  em- 
phasising  the    conception    of  Personality.      We 
have  been  showing  how  Christian  character  has 
been  drawn  out,  into  great  variety  of  activity,  in 
these  related  social  spheres,  developing  numerous 
gifts  or  potencies,  and  so  becoming  richer,  fuller, 
and  more  commanding  from  age  to  age.     And  so 
a  new  result  appears.     While  on  the  one  hand 
everything  is  of  God  in  the  Kingdom  of  Christ, 
and  man  is  in  the  dust  as  a  recipient  of  grace, 
yet  on  the  other  hand  surrender  leads  to  posses- 
sion of  consecrated  character  and  influence.    The 
forces  of  human  personality  are  raised  to  higher 
powers.      The  Kingdom  of  God  is  being  made 
visible  in  Christian  men.     The  world's  centre  of 
gravity  has  shifted  from  the  throne  of  the  despot, 
and  the  closet  of  the  oligarchy,  to  the  free  conflict 
of  opinion  and  conviction  in  modern  democracies. 
And    the   Christian    character   comes    into    this 


8o    THE  SPHERES  OF  SOCIAL  DUTY 

sphere  of  free  personal  conviction  and  opinion, 
to  set  an  ideal,  to  discover  new  possibilities  of 
human  nature,  and  draw  WHATSOEVER  THINGS 
ARE  WINNING,  OR  OF  GOOD  REPORT,  into  their 
real  relation  with  the  complete  truth  in  Christ. 

(vii)  But  in  this  great  classification,  we  have 
still  a  division,  or  indeed  two,  the  contemplation 
of  which  fills  us  with  admiration.  Paul  was  no 
zealot,  but  one  of  the  calmest  and  most  sober 
thinkers  that  the  world  has  ever  seen.  He  saw 
that  for  many  a  day,  Christianity  would  cover 
a  section,  and  a  very  small  section,  of  the  world. 
Other  systems  and  rules  of  life  would  command  a 
far  greater  allegiance.  Was  Christianity,  then,  in 
its  principles  of  individual  and  social  conduct,  to 
affect  a  cloistered  and  exclusive  wisdom  ?  So  far 
from  that,  as  it  aimed  to  bring  the  world  over 
to  the  Christian  standpoint,  so  must  each  soul, 
carrying  forward  this  mission,  come  into  sympathy 
with  every  gleam  of  good,  generous  aspiration, 
and  glint  of  reality  in  the  outfield  of  the  world. 
These  are  fragments  of  the  truth,  discovered  in 
royal  completeness  by  Christ.  The  Christian 
personality  is  to  play  round  them,  permeating 
them  with  a  finer  spirit,  born  of  a  purer  faith, 
and  then  eliminate  alien  elements,  before  giving 


THE  SPHERES   OF  SOCIAL  DUTY    8i 

them  harbourage,  with  kindred  truth  in  the  beliefs 
of  Christian  men. 

But  the  vision  of  the  great  apostle  went  further 
still.  Paul  is  not  content  to  say,  '  IF  THERE  BE 
ANY  VIRTUE — think  on  these  things.'  There  are, 
in  the  civilised  life  of  nations  from  age  to  age, 
ever  arising  to  shape  particular  eras,  ideals,  and 
ambitions,  not  purely  moral,  nor  yet  exclusively 
material,  but  containing  elements  from  both 
sides  and  from  all  the  regions  lying  between. 
Paul  describes  these  in  the  phrase  *  IF  THERE  BE 
ANY  PRAISE,  etc.  Into  those  ideals  or  ambitions 
the  intellectual  capital  of  these  several  ages  is 
poured.  These  are  the  praise  or  boast  of  their 
times.  Thus  the  revival  of  letters  was  the  passion 
of  one  age,  maritime  discovery  the  glory  of  an- 
other, the  religious  rights  of  conscience  the  battle- 
cry  of  a  third,  popular  education  the  task  of  a 
fourth.  And  Paul  foresaw  that  Christianity  in 
the  renewed  personalities  of  its  followers,  would 
be  in  the  heart  of  all  these  movements,  whether 
they  had  a  Christian  origin,  or  sprang  from 
humanist,  or  even  hostile,  tendencies.  If  there  be 
any  popular  enthusiasm,  whencesoever  originating 
■ — think,  say  to  yourself,  human  conviction  is  going 
into  this.    Men  who  are  made  in  the  image  of  God 

F 


82    THE  SPHERES   OF  SOCIAL  DUTY 

are  looking  in  this  direction.  It  cannot  but  be 
that  the  revelation  which  came  forth  from  Him 
in  whom  men  live  and  move,  should  have  some 
relation  to  this,  some  principle  or  guiding  which 
might  find  out  the  healthy  aims  which  underlie 
the  movement,  and  turn  them  to  lasting  good  for 
the  race. 


PART    II 

CHRISTIAN  CHARACTER  AT  WORK 
IN  THE  SOCIAL  SPHERES 


CHAPTER    I 

THE  ORIGINALITY   OF  THIS   INFLUENCE 

The  reader,  we  think,  can  now  judge  of  the 
relation  of  the  social  forces  of  Christianity  to  its 
immediate  aim — the  bringing  of  men  to  God, 
and  the  building  up  of  the  brotherhood  of  the 
redeemed  into  an  eternal  kingdom  of  holy  fellow- 
ship and  loving  service.  That  is  of  God,  came 
from  God,  lives  by  the  continual  grace  of  God, 
moves  in  the  power  of  God,  and  in  essential 
elements  continues  unchanged,  amid  all  changes 
of  place  and  time. 

In  every  age,  rash  and  unholy  hands  have  been 
thrust  forth  to  seize  this  ark  of  the  world's  hopes, 
and  to  use  it  for  the  service  of  immediate  human 
schemes.  But  risen  anew,  generation  by  genera- 
tion, in  the  redeemed  consciousness  of  multitudes, 
the  religion  of  Christ  stands  on  foundations  of  its 
own,  inviolable  as  light,  unapproachable  as  the 
stars,  living  by  a  power  from  beyond  the  bourne 
of  time,  incapable  of  decay  or  eclipse. 


S6  THE  ORIGINALITY  OF 

This  we  would  do  well  to  remember,  when  the 
social  impulse,  working  on  an  unprecedented 
scale,  seeks  to  organise  life,  on  principles  of 
equality,  for  utilitarian  ends.  The  servants  of  this 
impulse  may  take  it  into  their  heads,  that  they  can 
exploit  the  church  on  these  principles  for  these 
ends.  We  have  been  hearing  from  some,  whom 
we  account  friends,  talk  about  a  civic  church,  as  if 
we  might  have  a  vastly  extended  Christian  union, 
by  simply  eliminating  the  distinctively  Christian 
basis.  That  is  a  natural  gas,  which  may  serve 
as  a  temporary  illuminant,  for  souls  whose  en- 
thusiasm is  vastly  in  excess  of  clear  vision.  But 
such  teachers  are  giving  a  lead  to  others,  who 
may  use  the  idea,  with  far  more  serious  purpose, 
and  truly  disastrous  consequences. 

Multitudes,  who  ten  years  ago  were  sure  that 
they  were  going  to  eliminate  the  spiritual,  have 
learned  a  lesson  in  the  interval.  The  Church  is 
here  to  stay.  It  is  their  creed  which  has  been 
found  inadequate,  for  the  nutriment  of  life  and 
the  sustenance  of  society.  The  factors  of  human 
nature,  which  they  set  out  to  ignore,  have  turned 
out  to  be  real — far  more  real  than  their  surface 
theories.  And  the  societies  which  have  vindicated 
their  reality,  and  met  their  spiritual  cravings,  are 


THIS  INFLUENCE  87 

mounting  into  ever-greater  ascendency,  and  can 
push,  and  have  pushed  to  the  wall,  their  pallid  and 
pulseless  speculations.  What  if  they  now  resolve, 
since  they  cannot  crush  the  Church,  and  the  human 
organisations  which  live  by  her  inspiration,  to 
utilise  them,  turning  them  into  social  machines, 
for  higher  social  ends  ?  This  will  involve  the 
elimination  or  depreciation  to  vanishing  point  of 
the  supernatural  and  doctrinal  elements,  that  all 
good  citizens  may  meet  on  the  common  ground 
of  social  sympathies  and  public  service. 

If  we  are  right  in  our  forecast  and  appre- 
hensions, that  may  turn  out  a  searching  trial  to 
the  Church  of  Christ.  The  social  fruits  of  faith 
may  be  used,  as  an  argument  against  the  faith 
which  gave  them  birth.  Many  may  be  tempted, 
for  the  sake  of  the  immense  prestige  arising  from 
recognition  and  establishment  of  the  new  social 
state,  to  travel  far  in  the  direction  of  eliminating 
positive  doctrine,  and  the  reference,  in  faith  and 
prayer,  to  an  exclusive  divine  authority.  Every 
living  soul  will  be  thrown  into  the  furnace  of  a 
great  decision.  The  sons  of  God,  however — those 
who  by  grace  have  been  brought  into  living  union 
with  God — can  have  no  option.  The  religion  of 
Christ  came  forth  from  God.    It  stands  and  moves 


88  THE  ORIGINALITY  OF 

in  the  grace  and  power  of  God.  The  nations  of 
the  saved  must  in  the  future,  as  in  the  past,  defer 
in  everything,  yea,  by  positive  supplication  and 
intercession  continually  rise,  to  the  Divine  Will. 
The  Gospel  and  Kingdom  are  to  be  received,  not 
mastered,  as  a  social  machine.  We  make  them 
known  to  all  men  for  the  obedience  of  faith. 

One  wild  winter  in  Scotland,  a  fierce  hurricane 
strewed  with  ruin,  one  of  the  loveliest  wooded 
regions  in  Perthshire.  On  hill-faces,  and  in 
patches  of  many  acres  embossing  the  plain, 
sometimes  not  a  single  tree  would  be  left 
standing,  or  whole.  What  made  the  devastation 
so  exceptionally  complete,  was  that  the  trees 
were  struck  from  a  very  uncommon  quarter. 
They  had  all  been  fortifying  themselves  in  one 
direction,  to  meet  the  prevailing  wind,  and  when 
caught  behind,  they  were  unable  to  resist  attack. 
For  long  centuries,  the  spirit  of  Jesus  in  Christian 
men,  has  been  resisting  individual  selfishness,  and 
social  tyranny,  and  despotism  of  sovereigns  and 
oligarchies,  in  the  interests  of  the  masses  of  the 
people.  It  will  seem  strange  to  many,  then,  that 
in  the  alleged  interests  of  the  same  masses  we 
cannot  merge  Christianity  in  a  service  of  man, 
and  simply  use  the  law  of  Christian  self-sacrifice 


THIS   INFLUENCE  89 

and  brotherly  love,  as  an  engine  against  all  social 
inequality,  and  on  behalf  of  current  schemes  of 
communism.  That  we  should  keep  standing  on 
the  distinctively  Christian  ground,  and  labour  to 
convince  of  sin,  and  turn  to  God,  and  unite  the 
converted  and  renewed  in  exclusive  fellowships 
for  sanctification  and  service,  will  seem  to  many, 
aflame  with  social  enthusiasm  and  eager  for  im- 
mediate social  results,  a  grievous  coming  short, 
a  being  tied  to  old  formulas,  a  sacrifice  of  im- 
mediate good  to  Utopian  dreams. 

It  is  of  great  value,  then, — mayhap  we  are  not 
far  enough  as  yet  into  the  new  situation  to  appre- 
hend the  value, — that  such  a  view  as  we  have 
been  giving,  should  be  put  clearly  and  in  detail 
before  the  reflecting  Christian  public.  According 
to  what  we  have  seen,  Christianity  is  left  un- 
touched, unlimited,  unhampered  in  any  way,  on 
its  own  supernatural  ground.  And  yet  the  social 
influence  of  Christianity  is  not  an  accident,  some- 
thing which  has  merely  come  in  by  the  way  :  that 
is  an  inadequate  and  erroneous  presentation  of 
the  case.  The  immediate  effect  of  the  religion 
of  Christ  is  the  creation  of  a  new  nature  in  the 
believer,  which,  rising  on  a  foundation  of  self- 
surrender,  is,  in  the  way  we  described  at  length 


90  THE  ORIGINALITY  OF 

in  former  chapters,  being  drawn  into  conformity 
with  the  will,  and  assimilated  to  the  spirit  of  Christ. 
And  this  unit  of  consecrated  character,  like  the 
atom  or  still  more  like  the  cell,  is  an  organised 
force,  created  by  God,  and  instinct  with  a 
heavenly  life  which  must  make  itself  felt  in  every 
sphere  to  which  human  influence  can  extend, — 
without  in  society  and  the  state,  no  less  than 
within  in  the  Church.  And  the  outward  action 
of  these  potencies  of  Christian  character,  in  social 
and  public  spheres,  is  not  merely  incidental,  but 
an  integral  part  of  Christian  duty  and  service. 
In  the  new  Jerusalem,  as  all  the  inhabitants 
will  be  redeemed  and  holy,  so  all  the  organised 
activities  of  society,  and  government,  will  be  on 
the  spiritual  plane.  To  speak  in  the  language  of 
time,  the  world  will  be  within  the  Church.  At 
present,  however,  we  are  living  in  two  spheres, 
part  of  our  activity  being  on  the  plane  of  the 
Spirit  within  the  Church,  and  part  on  ordinary 
human  levels,  but  of  course  in  the  power  of  the 
Spirit,  with  friends,  neighbours,  fellow-citizens,  in 
the  relations  of  everyday  life.  In  both,  however, 
the  Christian  has  only  one  end,  bringing  the 
whole  life  of  man  into  subjection  to  Christ,  as 
King  of  Kings  and  Lord  of  Lords. 


THIS   INFLUENCE  91 

As  you  cannot  have  matter,  characterised  by 
the  properties  which  mark  the  material  substance 
of  the  universe,  without  atoms,  as  you  cannot 
have  living  creatures, — animal  and  vegetable, — 
without  living  cells,  from  which  they  are  built  up  ; 
so  you  cannot  have  the  public  any  more  than  the 
private  fruits,  the  social  more  certainly  than  the 
spiritual  creations  of  Christianity,  without  these 
units  of  consecrated  character,  —  those  social 
potencies,  brought  into  existence  by  divine  power, 
as  their  proximate  causes.  As  soon  expect  a  crop 
of  wheat,  without  the  wheat  germs  in  the  sown 
seed.  Have  we  not  seen  stored  up  in  the  cause, 
the  force  which  produced  the  effect  ?  Yea,  more 
exactly,  have  we  not  seen  the  human  personality, 
decentralised,  united  to  Christ,  drawn  out  into 
surrender,  caught  up  into  vision  of  the  divine, — 
in  a  word,  so  united  in  every  strand  of  its  indi- 
viduality, with  the  Personality  of  Christ,  that 
there  passes  through  it  into  the  life  of  the  world, 
moments  of  a  spiritual  energy,  which  has  no  home 
or  origin  in  the  earthly  sphere.  To  ignore,  or  dis- 
count that  fundamental  fact,  or  to  suppose  that 
you  can  reproduce,  what  is  so  original,  by  any 
human  means,  is  the  sort  of  irreverence  which, 
when  reduced  to  practice,  becomes  hideous  folly. 


92  THE  ORIGINALITY  OF 

While  affirming  this  with  profoundest  earnest- 
ness, we  do  not  of  course  forget  that  as  force,  in 
a  swinging  ball  or  a  propelled  body,  transmits 
itself  to  the  body  it  may  strike  against,  so  many 
catch  up  and  pass  on  the  influence  of  consecrated 
men,  who  are  not  themselves  recipients  of  divine 
grace.  There  are  no  influences  more  capable  of 
manifold  transmission,  than  those  which  spring 
from  living  religion.  Consecrated  spirits  have 
often  a  wholly  human  magnetism,  so  that  those 
even  who  are  not  living  by  their  light,  will  do 
homage  to  their  greatness  in  deeds  of  sacri- 
fice. Thus  incarnated  in  movements,  manifestos, 
struggles  for  liberty,  efforts  for  reform,  the  con- 
secrated zeal  of  spiritual  men  has  often  kindled  a 
nation.  So  many  truths  have  evolved  themselves 
from  central  truth,  so  many  associations  entwine 
themselves  around  heroic,  moral,  or  spiritual  wit- 
ness, such  numerous  effects  flow,  in  sweetening 
and  liberalising  currents,  from  the  smitten  rock  of 
principle,  that  multitudes  are  kept  in  touch,  with 
profound  social  and  moral  issues,  by  these  alone. 

By  multiplying  reflectors  in  our  closely-built 
business  streets,  you  may  carry  light  into  many 
corners,  which  otherwise  would  be  involved  in 
gloom.     But,  as  we  need  hardly  aver,  all  the  light 


THIS   INFLUENCE  93 

comes  from  the  sun  ;  and  so,  however  many 
the  angles  from  which  spiritual  light  may  be 
reflected  and  re-reflected,  the  vitality  is  from  the 
original  source.  True,  moral  and  social  and 
personal  impressions,  once  produced  in  human 
character,  are  more  permanent  than  reflections  of 
light,  and  so  it  happens  that,  even  after  the 
passing  of  the  consecrated  personality  which 
kindled  them,  they  for  a  season  abide.  If,  how- 
ever, they  are  not  refreshed  by  renewed  contact 
of  a  direct  kind  with  God,  they  lose  vitality, 
sicken  into  tradition,  become  effete,  corrupt. 
Most  of  the  abuses  with  which  successive  gene- 
rations have  had  to  contend,  have  been  reflec- 
tions or  outcomes,  of  principles  which  have  lost 
vital  contact  with  the  sources  which  gave  them 
birth,  and  so  have  become  dead,  draining  the 
energies  of  society,  rather  than  making  any 
helpful  contribution. 

Even  in  the  interests,  then,  of  the  social  pro- 
gress of  the  race,  it  is  of  prime  importance 
that  we  exalt  the  spiritual.  The  grand  inimit- 
able fruit  of  Christianity  is  the  renewed  man, 
in  actual  union  with  God,  and  in  limited  human 
measure,  repeating  something  of  the  charm  of 
the  incarnation,  by  breathing  a  life  begotten  of 


94  THE  ORIGINALITY  OF 

God  and  inspired  with  His  Spirit.  The  Church 
which  dies  to  self,  in  pouring  forth  such  a  stream 
of  consecrated  lives  with  the  blessing  of  God,  is 
the  Church  which  will  live  in  power,  above  the 
roaring  cataracts  of  time,  secure  in  her  own 
supremacy,  and  providing  for  all  spheres  of  society 
those  who,  breasting  the  evils  of  the  world,  will 
turn  to  issues  of  righteousness  and  good,  the 
higher  life  of  mankind.  We  are  coming  to  a 
conflict  of  powers ;  and  nothing  but  the  power 
of  God,  in  men,  through  whom  (by  the  discipline 
of  the  divine  life)  it  has  become  an  abiding,  opera- 
tive presence  and  energy,  can  cast  out  the  forces 
of  the  flesh  and  the  evil  one. 

In  thus  exalting,  however,  the  spiritual,  and 
insisting  on  the  distinctive  sphere  which  it 
occupies,  and  the  special  mission  which  God  set 
up  His  Church  to  fulfil,  we  are  not  separating 
this  highest  sphere  from  all  the  lower  levels  of 
life.  The  kingdom  of  Christ  is  set  above  the  hills, 
that  streams  of  influence  may  flow  down  into  all 
the  kingdoms  of  the  world.  This  we  have  already 
seen  to  some  extent  in  opening  up  the  apostle's 
thought.  He  who  holds  of  God,  has  relations  with 
all  that  God  has  made.  One  with  the  Absolute 
True,  in  the  realm  of  faith  and  life  and  love,  the 


THIS   INFLUENCE  95 

Christian  regards  all  truth  as  his  province.  Made 
alive  through  the  infinite  sacrifice  of  love,  the 
Christian  has  won  the  master  law  of  life  in  re- 
sponse to  that  sacrifice,  and  the  key  to  the  divine 
significance  of  all  lower  obligations  and  rights. 
And  so  on  we  might  go,  over  ground  trodden 
already  more  than  once.  Having  now  come, 
however,  to  the  completion  of  our  exposition  of 
principles,  there  remains  but  to  illustrate  the 
working  of  these  social  potencies,  in  the  varied 
spheres  sketched  out  by  the  apostle. 

Our  aim  in  this  is  to  suggest  thought,  rather  than 
satisfy  inquiry.  Not  one  but  a  series  of  volumes 
would  be  required  to  illustrate  the  full  influence 
of  Christianity,  through  all  the  potencies  she 
has  created,  within  all  the  spheres  sketched  out 
by  the  genius  of  the  apostle.  We  have  had  an 
extensive  literature,  within  the  last  few  years, 
on  the  reactive  influence  of  heathen  thought  on 
Christian  theology.  But,  what  a  literature  would 
be  required,  to  lay  bare  the  moulding  influence  of 
Christian  conceptions  (in  gradual  development) 
upon  the  thought  of  Europe,  in  philosophy, 
science,  art,  government,  law,  education,  social 
relations.  Then  take  another  theme, — thedynamic 
of  the  consecrated  soul,  in  matters  of  personal 


96  THE  ORIGINALITY  OF 

purity,  working  itself  clear  from  the  unimagined 
corruptions  of  heathenism,  kindling  new  senses  of 
modesty  and  reserve,  breaking  out  into  asceticism, 
blossoming  into  flowers  of  chivalric  enthusiasm, 
and  into  the  spiritual  ardours  of  a  Dante  for 
Beatrice,  and  so  working  along  many  lines,  to 
those  relations  of  the  sexes  in  Modern  Europe, 
which  have  put  woman  on  a  level  with  man,  as  a 
rival  in  service,  counting  for  half,  in  bearing  the 
burdens  of  Christian  civilisation,  and  the  kingdom 
of  God. 

These  mere  openings  into  two  spheres,  may 
let  us  see  what  an  extensive  task  it  would  be, 
exhaustively  to  cover,  with  adequate  historical 
illustration,  this  great  theme.  But  in  lesser  degree 
it  may  be  worth  while  to  glance  at  it,  putting 
down  such  things  as  have  specially  impressed  an 
individual  observer  in  the  working  of  these  Chris- 
tian potencies  within  the  several  spheres.  There 
is  a  justness  in  the  Christian  spirit  which  neutral- 
ises opposing  extremes,  by  supplying  the  lack  of 
one  with  the  fulness  of  the  other.  There  is  a 
catholicity  in  the  Christian  view,  which  carries 
us  past  partisan  positions,  to  a  higher  platform. 
Besides,  the  matters  with  which  we  shall  have  to 
deal,  are  such  as  immediately  concern  us — truth, 


THIS   INFLUENCE  97 

duty,  right,  purity — which  can  as  profitably  be 
studied  in  the  nearness  of  personal  observation 
and  incident,  as  well  as  from  the  altitudes  of 
philosophic  generalisation. 

We  commend  these  succeeding  illustrations  to 
the  reader  for  what  they  are  worth,  sorry  that  for 
lack  of  time,  and  other  lacks  mayhap,  we  have 
not  been  able  to  make  them  more  complete.  And 
now,  in  drawing  these  introductory  words  to  a 
close,  we,  who  have  been  living  with  these  thoughts 
for  a  long  space,  feel  constrained  to  add  two 
practical  reflections.  What  so  intricate,  and  so 
entirely  beyond  the  most  skilled  powers  of  fore- 
cast, as  the  groupings  of  force  and  resultant  lines 
of  activity  in  a  great  civilisation  !  We  slowly 
spell  our  way  into  them,  and  hardly  have 
mastered  them,  till  they  have  suffered  an  obliter- 
ating change.  Whence  can  have  come  the  wisdom 
which  has  enabled  men,  year  by  year,  and 
generation  by  generation,  in  circumstances  of 
enormous  variety,  marked  not  only  by  individual 
differences,  but  by  vast  secular  change, — some- 
times to  meet  dumb  inarticulate  needs  of  nations, 
in  a  reformation  movement,  sometimes  to  divine 
the  one  moment  for  striking  a  hoary  wrong, 
sometimes  to  inaugurate  a  new  departure,  just 

G 


98  THE  ORIGINALITY  OF 

before  the  invisible  conditions  necessary  to  its 
realisation  took  shape  and  assumed  prominence  ? 
Who  has  given  Christian  character,  in  its  public 
activities,  the  secret  of  the  psychological  mo- 
ment? Here  we  have  another  unnoticed,  but 
very  powerful,  element  of  the  Christian's  influence. 
We  have  seen  the  marvellous  formation  of  Christ- 
centred  characters,  the  cells  or  living  units  of 
Christian  civilisation.  But  remarkable  though 
their  inherent  force  may  be,  there  have  been 
situations  again  and  again,  in  which  the  con- 
secrated human  personalities  were  simply  the 
fingers  which  pressed  the  springs,  the  hands 
which  established  the  contact.  One  higher  than 
man  had  been  working  to  bring  great  forces  of 
thought  and  feeling  into  relation,  which  thence- 
forth moved  on  to  foreseen  issues.  Luther's 
burning  of  the  Pope's  bull,  simply  fired  the 
powder-train,  which  kindled  to  revolutionary 
expression,  explosive  forces  that  had  been  stored 
up,  in  all  reverent  souls  and  God-fearing  com- 
munities over  Europe.  Christ  is  not  only  in 
His  people  but  with  them.  '  His  way  is  in  the 
sea.  His  path  in  the  great  waters ; '  yet  is  He 
'leading  His  people  like  a  flock.' 

All  this  being  as  we  have  stated,  the  Chris- 


THIS   INFLUENCE  99 

tian's  danger,  to  be  perpetually  guarded  against, 
— which,  upon  our  knees,  and  in  the  searching 
study  of  Holy  Scripture,  we  should  seek  a 
divine  deliverance  from — is  the  traditional,  stereo- 
typed, routine  spirit,  that  runs  in  old  grooves, 
and  glorifies  old  divisions,  and  maintains  partisan 
attitudes,  and  looks  askance  at  the  millions 
lying  beyond.  That  is  a  real  danger.  What  was 
precious  in  former  times,  was  the  mighty  faith 
which  led  our  fathers  up  to  their  advanced 
positions.  What  is  precious  for  us  is  a  similar 
loyalty,  which  at  Christ's  bidding  will  carry  us 
beyond  them.  If  we  are  in  Him  and  living  for 
Him,  we  cannot  have  too  wide  horizons.  *  He  is 
the  light  that  lighteth  every  man  that  cometh 
into  the  world.'  Wherever,  amid  error  and  selfish- 
ness and  wild  fancy,  there  is  a  gleam  of  good, 
a  flash  of  real  discernment,  in  any  hearts,  that 
came  not  by  chance.  Our  Lord  ordered  that 
blossoming,  to  bring  men  even  by  their  vagrant 
inspirations  to  Himself  When  this  earth  shall 
be  full  of  the  knowledge  of  the  glory  of  the 
Lord,  as  the  waters  cover  the  sea,  where  shall 
be  our  party  walls,  that  cut  us  off  from  one 
another,  and  from  the  great  heart  of  humanity  ? 
Drowned   out   of  sight,   like   the   lake-dwellings 


100     ORIGINALITY  OF  INFLUENCE 

of  old  Time.  Let  us  live,  then,  in  our  Lord,  for 
the  future,  which  is  even  now  present  in  His 
thought.  '  I  will  wait  for  the  Lord,  who  hideth 
His  face,  and  I  will  look  for  Him' — all  life  being 
regulated — to  use  significant  verses  of  Browning : 

'  By  the  single  care 
I'  the  last  resort,— that  I  made  thoroughly  serve 
The  when  and  how,  toiled  when  was  need,  reposed 
As  resolutely  at  the  proper  point. 
Braved  sorrow,  courted  joy,  to  just  one  End — 
Namely,  that  just  the  creature  I  was  bound 
To  be,  I  should  become,  nor  thwart  at  all 
God's  purpose  in  creation.' 


CHAPTER    II 

THE   CHRISTIAN    IDEA   OF   TRUTH 

We  have  set  out  to  describe  some  of  those  poten- 
cies springing  from  Christian  character,  which, 
working  in  the  various  social  spheres,  have  made 
the  religion  of  Jesus  the  largest  and  most  im- 
portant factor  in  the  progress  of  mankind.  And 
our  aim  is  not  so  much  to  cover  the  whole  ground, 
which  would  be  impossible,  as  to  seize  instances 
which  may  exhibit  the  distinctive  qualities  and 
vast  range  of  this  influence.  And  so  we  begin  with 
the  True.  Christianity  does  not  influence  society 
and  social  progress  simply  by  the  spirit  of  al- 
truism, which  it  makes  operative.  That,  though 
a  common,  is  a  most  confined  and  inadequate 
conception  of  its  social  power.  The  Christian 
spirit  working  in  men,  carries  within  it  a  distinct 
idea  of  truth,  and  undergirds  the  whole  world  of 
human  knowledge  and  interests,  with  that  idea. 

Christianity  has  so  far  educated  mankind,  that 
even  the   most   material    minds,   centred   exclu- 

101 


102    THE  CHRISTIAN  IDEA  OF  TRUTH 

sively  in  the  present  and  the  visible,  confess  that 
unselfish  love  is  a  force  among  men.  They  can 
only  conceive  of  this,  however,  as  an  inference 
from  self-interest,  a  kind  of  *  sport'  which  has 
sprung,  quite  unaccountably,  from  a  universe 
based  on  force,  and  built  up  by  ceaseless  rivalry 
of  warring  energies.  They  are  infinitely  far  from 
discerning,  that  this  unselfish  love  is  not  merely 
the  ultimate  effect — the  last  contradictory  out- 
come of  a  system  based  on  ceaseless  assertions 
of  force, — but  the  beginning  ;  that  a  purpose  of 
love,  conceived  in  the  mind  of  a  self-existent  Per- 
sonality, is  the  veritable  Source  of  all.  In  other 
words,  the  roots  of  this  universe  are  not  material, 
but  intellectual,  moral,  and  spiritual,  in  a  Per- 
sonality, who  has  created,  for  an  intellectual, 
moral,  and  spiritual  end,  that  He  may  stand  self- 
discovered  to  a  universe  of  created  intelligences, 
and  have  them  with  Him  in  an  undying  fellow- 
ship. 

When,  then,  through  Christ,  we  come  into  filial 
union  with  this  Personality,  we  stand  with  Him 
at  the  centre  of  truth  and  being.  Every  depart- 
ment of  creation  is  related,  in  scope  and  form,  to 
this  central  purpose,  and  has  a  part  in  working 
toward  a  full  realisation.      The  Christian  has  a 


THE  CHRISTIAN  IDEA  OF  TRUTH    103 

peculiar  interest  in  every  aspect  of  that  creation, 
inasmuch  as  it  shows  forth,  with  divine  originality, 
and  in  measureless  variety,  lights  of  that  central 
purpose  of  love,  realised  in  chief  through  his  own 
sonship  with  God.  And  as  thinkers  come  up 
from  a  particular  study  of  parts,  in  the  vast 
scheme  of  nature,  with  inferences  and  theories 
based  upon  the  facts  under  their  own  eye,  the 
Christian  has  a  concern  such  as  no  other  one  can 
have,  to  see  that  these  inferences  and  theories  are 
not  rash,  and  in  contradiction  to  higher  facts.  He 
must  keep  the  question  open  till  fuller  knowledge 
decide.  Of  course  he  has  no  refuge  but  in  the  full 
truth.  But  in  his  higher  sphere  of  spiritual  com- 
munion with  God,  he  also  has  facts  to  be  reckoned 
with.  And  so  theories  get  sifted,  and  onesided 
statements  are  corrected,  and  new  harmonies  be- 
tween natural  and  spiritual  emerge,  and  truth  orbs 
toward  the  perfect  round  of  that  full  synthesis, 
when,  according  to  Paul,  the  glory  of  creation  shall 
be  seen  in  the  manifestation  of  the  sons  of  God. 

How  Christian  character,  because  of  this  com- 
manding relation  to  truth,  has  influenced  the 
social  progress  of  man,  we  shall  not — beyond 
what  has  already  been  advanced — attempt  to 
show.      Enough   has  been  given  for  suggestion. 


104    THE  CHRISTIAN  IDEA  OF  TRUTH 

and  that  must  suffice.  Yet  it  may  be  interesting 
to  recall  the  recent  defeat,  or  rather  the  with- 
drawal of  human  thought  and  interest,  from  mere 
material  explanations,  and  the  evident  reaction 
toward  the  spiritual,  and  specially  toward  the 
problem  of  Personality,  as  containing  the  clue  to 
the  mystery  of  existence.  That  is  .a  tendency  of 
which  much  is  to  be  made  by  Christian  men.  We 
must  not  suffer  ourselves  to  be  ruled  out  of  the 
courts  of  reason.  Rather  must  we  labour  to  main- 
tain the  spiritual  view  of  the  universe,  not  with 
weapons  of  authority,  but  by  establishing  in  a 
living  Church,  the  reality  of  the  spiritual,  and 
meeting  all  knowledge  in  a  trustful  spirit,  assured 
that  there  can  be  no  discord,  that  every  particular 
truth  will  fill  out  the  full  harmony  of  truth,  '  the 
great  chime  and  symphony  of  nature.' 

But  there  is  one  point  of  great  importance 
still  to  be  considered.  The  Christian  Personality 
stands  in  such  a  commanding  relation  to  'what- 
ever things  are  true,'  because  of  a  prior  relation 
to  Him  who  is  the  True.  His  interest  in  all  true 
things  is  accentuated,  because  of  his  attitude  to 
the  Great  Personality  who  called  them  all  into 
being.  The  bond  between  him  and  God  is  of  a 
kind  to  transfigure   his   whole   nature,  and  even 


THE  CHRISTIAN  IDEA  OF  TRUTH    105 

transform  his  researches  into  the  True.  He  is  not 
a  mere  speculator,  sounding  the  abysses  of  the 
Divine.  He  is  not  here  a  scientific  man,  with 
his  exact  methods  of  research,  ascertaining  truth 
in  this  difficult  field.  He  is  not  a  poet  or  artist 
dreaming  beautiful  imaginations.  In  the  great 
venture  of  faith,  he  has  come  into  personal  rela- 
tion and  submission  to  Him  who  is  True.  The 
Christian  is  a  decentralised  man.  Self-dethroned, 
he  has  come  into  a  personal  relation  to  the  True  ; 
yea,  the  Spirit  of  the  True  has  come  into  him,  to 
guide  him  in  personal  being  into  fuller  fellowship. 
These,  you  say,  are  the  commonplaces  of  theo- 
logy. Ay,  but  they  are  far  from  being  common- 
place in  ethics  and  social  philosophy.  It  is  just 
because  their  unique  and  sublime  character,  from 
the  standpoint  of  the  study  of  the  True,  has  not 
been  apprehended,  that  men  have  been  short- 
sighted in  their  explanations  of  the  social  influ- 
ence of  the  faith.  Because  of  that  attitude  of 
surrender  to  the  Absolute  True,  God  comes  down 
nto  the  Christian  soul,  not  only  in  personal  pre- 
sence, but  in  His  whole  view  of  things  regarding 
man,  life,  the  world,  the  future.  Living  in  God, 
the  Christian  is  drawn  up  into  the  circle  of  the 
divine  thought,  and  sent  out  to  realise  it  among 


106    THE  CHRISTIAN   IDEA  OF  TRUTH 

men.  He  has  not  simply  got  a  different  theory  ; 
he  has  passed  through  an  experience,  and  risen 
into  a  new  life,  related  to  God  and  eternity, 
which  have  carried  him  to  the  centre  of  a  new 
world,  and  given  him  a  grasp  of  truths  and  their 
relationships,  in  the  depths  of  his  soul,  which 
makes  him  immutable  against  all  doubt,  invio- 
late from  fear.  He  is  not  a  mere  critic ;  but  one 
with  God,  in  the  bonds  of  redeeming  love,  to 
realise  all  His  ideals,  and  see  His  complete  pur- 
pose through. 

Because  of  this  relation  to  Truth — this  view  of 
the  absolute  dominion  of  the  True  over  all  per- 
sonal interests — the  Christian  becomes  a  social 
force  at  every  point,  where  he  touches  human 
life,  of  the  first  magnitude.  First,  in  the  abso- 
luteness of  his  devotion.  He  owes  existence  to 
Him  who  is  the  Personal  True.  He  has  been 
called  into  being  to  realise  and  fulfil  the  True. 
The  interests  of  the  True  take  precedence  over 
all  personal  interests  and  claims.  And  so  under 
the  inspiration  of  the  Christian  spirit,  men  have 
been  willing  for  the  sake  of  the  True — spiritual 
truth,  truth  of  conscience,  truth  of  intellectual 
principles — gladly  to  give  up  their  lives.  A 
hundred  times  progress  would  have  come  to  a  dead 


THE  CHRISTIAN   IDEA  OF  TRUTH    107 

stop,  if  it  had  not  been  for  the  dynamic  of  sacri- 
fice. Culture  is  incapable  of  sacrifice  ;  it  is  self- 
centred.  Again,  why  should  a  man  sacrifice  what 
remains  of  his  seventy  years  of  life,  to  find  out 
facts  about  a  material  universe,  which  is  itself 
hurrying  to  dissolution?  Materialism  saps  the 
springs  of  sacrifice.  Only  in  a  surrendered  heart, 
believing  in  an  Absolute  True,  whose  interests 
are  supreme  over  all  persons,  can  spring  those 
heroisms  and  self-sacrificing  impulses,  which  have 
carried  the  world  to  higher  levels  of  being,  and 
fertilised  the  life  of  man. 

But  notice,  secondly,  where  the  Christian  char- 
acter begins  to  operate.  Through  the  dynamic 
of  personal  influence.  He  does  not  begin  with 
the  pursuit  of  the  True  in  plants  and  animals, 
but  in  himself.  His  whole  inner  life  is  an  intense 
effort  to  come  into  oneness  of  mind  with  the 
True.  And  though  that  be  without  the  sphere 
of  society,  in  the  inner  world  of  devotion,  it 
profoundly  affects  society.  Here  we  have  per- 
haps the  grandest  social  effect  of  the  Christian 
character  —  an  effect  which  had  been  working 
continuously  over  the  entire  area  of  the  Church, 
through  all  the  centuries.  The  sere  heart  of  the 
old  pagan  world  leaped  to  behold  in  Christian 


io8    THE  CHRISTIAN  IDEA  OF  TRUTH 

men  a  new  fruitage  of  personal  excellences — ideals 
of  sympathy,  of  chivalry,  of  purity,  of  sterling 
conscience,  of  serene  calm,  of  ardent  sacrifice. 
It  hailed  them  as  approximations  to  the  ideal 
Truth  of  human  nature,  and  went  on  to  work 
them  into  the  life  of  the  race.  And  so,  bred  of 
secret  communion  with  the  True,  qualities  have 
been  developed  in  renewed  souls,  which,  reflected 
in  action,  and  built  up  in  character,  have  raised 
the  human  level  generation  by  generation. 

But,  thirdly,  see  the  social  potency  of  Christian 
character,  working  in  the  sphere  of  society.  The 
Christian  is  a  man  who  has  a  prior  obligation  to 
God  the  Absolute  True.  He  lives  to  advance 
the  master  end  of  the  True,  the  redemption  of 
men.  But  he  is  in  society.  He  carries  down 
into  that  sphere,  all  the  conceptions  of  man  and 
life  learned  from  God.  He  has  relations  to  men 
in  themselves,  and  as  made  for  the  glory  of  God. 
Standing  thus,  he  is  not  primarily  a  theorist  or 
innovator  on  social  matters.  He  is  mainly  seeking 
other  and  higher  ends.  He  cannot  help,  however, 
being  an  influence.  Even  when  denied,  as  was 
the  case  with  the  early  Christians,  voice  or  power 
in  social  affairs,  in  virtue  of  his  very  idea  of  the 
worth  of  man,  he  is  moved  to  sympathy  and  help. 


THE  CHRISTIAN   IDEA  OF  TRUTH     109 

The  religious  longing  that  men  should  fulfil  their 
ideal,  creates  a  social  longing  to  take  away  every- 
thing hindering  that  fulfilment.  That  thought, 
too,  of  man's  inherent  greatness,  even  in  days 
of  political  impotence,  worked  like  a  climatic  in- 
fluence, repressing  tyranny,  exposing  the  wrong 
of  slavery,  exalting  considerations  of  humanity, 
pushing  into  the  foreground  everything  which 
made  for  the  culture,  and  security,  and  comfort 
of  human  beings. 

And  so  European  life  gradually  changed.  And 
through  interminable  conflicts,  human  personal- 
ity steadily  grew,  asserting  spiritual  rights  with 
which  kings  may  not  interfere ;  civil  rights  and 
liberties,  belonging  to  man  because  of  his  in- 
herent capacities,  and  necessary  to  the  complete 
development  of  human  society;  immunities,  advan- 
tages, enjoyments,  of  value  for  the  full  culture  of 
the  entire  nature.  In  more  ways  than  we  can  wait 
to  describe  is  the  Christian  character,  in  virtue 
of  the  whole  view  of  existence  to  which  it  has 
yielded  itself,  bearing  down  on  the  public  life  of 
man,  working  to  the  higher  good  of  the  world. 

But,  fourthly.  Christian  character  stands  on  an 
absolute  surrender  to  Truth.  We  are  in  Him  who 
is  the  True,  and  knowing  Him,  we  must  seek  to 


no    THE  CHRISTIAN  IDEA  OF  TRUTH 

know  all  things  in  Him.  This  sends  us  in  on 
ourselves,  back  on  history,  out  on  the  world. 
And  since  we  have  appealed  to  Truth,  to  Truth 
we  must  go.  There  can  be  no  stay  to  research, 
discussion,  controversy,  but  the  full-rounded  dis- 
covery of  the  Truth.  The  heathen  and  Moham- 
medan nations  of  the  world  are  stagnant  as  a 
pool.  In  every  living  Christian  people,  a  brisk 
life  of  never-ceasing  discussion,  on  every  imagin- 
able theme,  prevails.  Yea,  the  divine  thought, 
discovered  to  the  surrendered  soul,  moves  in  so 
exalted  a  region  of  purpose  and  plan,  that  only 
by  fragments,  in  single  pulses  of  thought,  can 
men  realise  its  bearings  and  manifold  issues.  Un- 
limited liberty  is  given  to  human  individuality 
in  slowly  reaching  up  to  each  fragment  of  that 
thought.  Every  possible  view  is  stated,  elabo- 
rated, exhausted  ;  and  so,  step  by  step,  now  on 
this  side,  now  on  that,  men  are  slowly  advanc- 
ing to  the  reconciling  and  all-harmonising  view 
discovered  in  revelation. 

And  coming  last  of  all  to  the  circumference, 
we  reach  this  material  world.  That  is  not  primary, 
but  secondary.  Personality  comes  first  in  the 
revelation  of  a  personal  God ;  but  nature  is  in- 
cluded in  His  plan  as  a  mediate  creation,  sub- 


THE  CHRISTIAN   IDEA  OF  TRUTH     in 

serving  the  ends  of  Personality.  And  the  Chris- 
tian personality  comes  into  this  material  region, 
expecting  a  universe,  the  outblossoming  of  God's 
personal  purpose,  the  reflection  of  His  personal 
thought.  The  personal  reason  of  man  expects 
to  find  in  the  world  without,  the  manifestation  of 
the  divine  reason.  It  was  a  Christian  instinct, 
which  impelled  Lord  Bacon  to  propound  his 
inductive  system  of  observation,  which  inspired 
the  infinitely  patient  research  of  Kepler,  and 
Galileo,  and  Newton.  They  longed  and  were 
content  to  read  God's  thoughts  from  His  works. 
As  men  are  falling  away  from  the  Christian  view, 
they  are  becoming  more  rash  in  hypothesis,  more 
unmeasured  in  speculation,  cutting  and  carving  at 
facts,  ignoring  whole  sides  of  existence,  pushing 
other  sides  into  exaggeration,  ignoring  the  spiri- 
tual in  man,  exalting  the  material. 

It  IS  the  Christian  character  which,  because  of 
its  special  relation  to  Truth,  takes  in  all  existence 
in  due  relation  and  proper  proportions,  'seeing 
life  steadily,  and  seeing  it  whole.'  And  therefore, 
after  all  excesses  and  aberrations,  now  on  this 
side  and  now  on  that,  it  is  the  Christian  view 
which  will  hold  the  confidence  of  men,  and  guide 
the  progress  of  the  world. 


CHAPTER    III 

THE   CHRISTIAN   SENSE   OF   HONOUR 

Ebers,  in  a  note  to  one  of  his  Egyptian  stories, 
tells  an  interesting  little  legend.  A  wise  man, 
being  summoned  to  forecast  the  future  to  an 
Eastern  king,  said,  '  Sire,  every  relation  that  you 
have  is  to  die  before  you.*  The  prospect  of  such 
a  number  of  deaths  seemed  so  dismal,  that  the 
self-willed  ruler  ordered  the  seer  to  the  block. 
Another  seer,  called  to  the  perilous  task  of  pro- 
phecy, said,  'Sire,  you  will  live  longer  than  all 
your  relations.'  The  prospect  was  so  pleasing 
that  the  king  gave  the  seer  a  great  reward. 

Both  had  said  the  same  thing.  Only  they 
looked  at  the  fact  from  different  points  of  view ; 
and  with  strikingly  different  effect,  as  one  found 
to  his  loss  and  the  other  to  his  gain.  The  whole 
settlement  of  a  question  sometimes  depends  on 
the  point  of  view.  We  are  led  into  this  line  of 
remark,  observing  the  distinction  between  the 
ordinary  position,  assumed   in  the  discussion  of 

112 


CHRISTIAN   SENSE   OF  HONOUR     113 

social  questions,  and  the  distinctly  Christian 
standpoint.  Men  as  a  rule  begin  with  raising 
the  question  of  relative  rights.  From  end  to  end 
of  society,  we  find  individuals,  classes,  trades, 
agitating  for  their  fair  share  of  profits,  and  their 
due  recognition  in  all  sorts  of  ways.  There  seems 
to  be  a  growing  tendency,  to  press  abstract 
theories  of  economic  right  to  unpractical  and 
sometimes  mischievous  extremes,  even  in  the 
absence  of  any  dominating  necessity,  in  the 
poverty  or  bondage  of  individuals  or  bodies 
of  men.  And  multitudes,  despairing  of  ever 
bringing  all  classes  to  their  relative  places  of 
right,  would  annihilate  private  property,  pool 
the  nation's  resources,  and  compel  all  to  share 
alike  in  one  inclusive  social  scheme. 

There  never  has  been  a  termination  of  these 
agitations  ;  from  that  standpoint  there  never  will 
be.  Like  the  first  seer  in  our  story,  they  are 
beginning  at  the  wrong  end. 

There  is  a  profound  moral  reason  why  men  can 
never  reach  a  true  satisfaction,  starting  with  the 
idea  of  their  relative  claims.  Life  is  a  dower,  and 
carries  with  it  burdens  of  obligation.  We  waken 
into  life,  in  a  network  of  relations,  to  parents, 
relations,   friends ;    and    the   first   questions,   for 

H 


114  THE  CHRISTIAN  SENSE 

every  one  who  is  loyal  to  the  facts  of  life,  are,  What 
am  I  owing  in  this,  that,  and  the  other  respects, 
to  all  those  by  whom  I  am  what  I  am  ?  As  we 
essay  to  meet  our  obligations,  and  take  our  place 
with  a  view  to  this  in  the  scheme  of  the  world's 
business,  our  rights — what  things  are  due  to  us 
— will  shape  themselves  definitely  in  our  view. 

Mr.  Ruskin  has  pointed  out  with  great  power, 
that  we  cannot  isolate  a  mere  fragment  of  human 
nature  such  as  man's  acquisitive  instinct,  and — 
upon  the  principle  '  that  he  is  idle  and  covetous, 
and  that  the  maximum  quantity  of  wealth,  em- 
bodied in  material  forms  and  measured  by  money, 
is  the  sole  object  of  endeavour'^ — build  up  a 
science  and  art  of  political  economy,  applicable 
to  the  world  as  it  stands.  Life  is  organically  one, 
and  must  be  dealt  with  as  one.  And  so  we 
cannot  isolate  the  problem  of  our  political  and 
social  rights,  and  treat  them  in  separation  from 
life's  central  interests  and  aims.  We  must  take 
in  as  a  whole,  in  its  fundamental  conditions  and 
relations,  the  life  which  owns  these  rights.  The 
only  correlative  to  right,  is  duty.  The  only  thing 
which  can  establish  a  moral  claim  (for  right  is  a 
moral  claim)  is  duty  done,  service  rendered.    And 

*  John  Ruskin^  Social  Refortner,  by  J.  A.  Hobson,  p.  64. 


OF  HONOUR  115 

no  man,  of  right,  can  take  his  stand  on  his 
claims  from  others,  till  he  has  loyally  striven  to 
meet  his  obligations  to  others.  And  the  con- 
sideration of  these  obligations  carries  him  into 
his  conception  of  life  as  a  whole.  And  so  it  is 
our  view  of  our  obligations  to  others,  which  is 
regulative  of  the  whole  problem  of  duties  and 
rights. 

Jesus  Christ,  when  He  essayed  to  restore  a 
ruined  world,  which  was  ruined  economically  as 
well  as  morally  and  spiritually,  acted  on  this 
principle.  Human  rights  were  trampled  under 
foot.  There  was  a  riot  of  social  wrong,  as  well 
as  universal,  moral  and  spiritual,  corruption. 
And  in  uniting  men  to  God,  He  had  it  in  mind, 
to  lead  them  to  the  principles  of  all  right  living, 
social  as  individual,  in  Him.  And  what  was  His 
plan  ?  To  revive  in  man,  the  buried  and  outraged 
sense  of  obligation, — to  make  the  sense  of  that  a 
living  and  powerful  force  within  the  soul.  But 
that  He  could  not  accomplish,  on  ordinary  levels. 
He  essayed  to  raise  obligation  to  a  higher  power ; 
not  simply  to  call  forth  in  men  a  deference  to 
statute,  but  through  an  infinite  sacrifice  to  win 
love,  to  create  a  sense  of  honour,  eager  to 
interpret  and  meet  obligation  ;   not  waiting  for 


ii6  THE  CHRISTIAN   SENSE 

statute,  but  moving  in  the  impulse  of  free  love. 
And  so — for  so  many-sided  is  all  the  work  of 
God — the  sacrifice  which  answered  to  God  for 
our  personal  transgression,  woke  that  love-born 
sense  of  honour,  which  is  not  merely  the  spring 
of  our  personal  sanctification,  but  the  principle  of 
social  regeneration. 

By  the  introduction  of  steam  into  a  great 
factory — an  old  story  now — the  driving  forces  of 
that  complicated  industrial  system  were  unified. 
Operations  that  had  been  carried  on  formerly 
by  other  means — water,  manual  labour,  and  so 
forth — are  now  performed  at  a  higher  rate  of 
speed,  and  with  greater  ease  than  formerly.  And 
other  and  vaster  operations  are  inaugurated, 
which  were  practically  impossible,  till  such  a 
magnificent  motor  had  been  utilised.  So,  by 
the  introduction  of  this  new  sense  of  obligation, 
springing  up  in  response  to  His  great  sacrifice ; 
by  bringing  in  so  immeasurable  a  motive  to  obey, 
acting  perpetually,  and  with  such  power  on  all 
that  is  most  central  and  sensitive  in  the  human 
heart,  Christ  controls  the  whole  realm  of  moral 
duty.  To  the  ordinary  duties  of  morality  He 
adds  a  higher  sanction.  They  are  better  done, 
because  done  for  Christ's   sake.      The   outward 


OF  HONOUR  117 

act  may  be  the  same,  but  they  are  permeated 
with  a  finer  spirit. 

And  then,  as  we  have  seen,  He  has  raised 
obh'gation  to  a  higher  power,  by  His  sacrifice 
of  free  love.  We  are  thrown  in  upon  our  own 
sense  of  honour,  to  originate  a  response  of  love. 
The  element  of  compulsion  is  removed,  and  we 
act  in  the  liberty  of  affection.  We  take  wider 
circuits,  and  attain  to  finer  senses,  of  obligation. 
And  Christ,  in  the  conscience  of  His  people,  is 
the  driving  force  of  the  whole. 

Let  us  leave  now  the  inner  circle  of  religion 
and  come  down  into  the  sphere  of  social  life. 
It  would  take  a  treatise,  rather  than  what  remains 
of  this  brief  chapter,  to  show  the  magnificent 
position,  in  which  this  conception  and  attitude 
place  the  Christian  man,  for  dealing  with  the 
whole  problem  of  society.  The  world  is  not,  in 
the  language  of  the  ancient  Pistol,  his  oyster  to 
open  and  eat — an  arena  in  which  to  urge  con- 
tending claims,  where  rival  parties  struggle  for 
the  mastery.  He  has  his  private  and  separate 
interests  like  other  men,  but  in  this  great  prin- 
ciple of  obligation,  for  benefit  received,  to  God 
in  Christ,  he  has  a  determining  and  regulating 
principle,  which  brings  his  personal  interests  into 


ii8  THE  CHRISTIAN  SENSE 

harmony  with,  and  makes  them  subservient  to, 
pubh'c  duty. 

By  meeting  all  the  obligations  of  our  position, 
under  the  inspirations  and  in  the  master-view  of 
what  we  owe  to  Christ,  we  are  serving  a  moral 
order  as  real,  though  maintained  by  the  deliberate 
action  of  free  wills,  as  the  law  of  the  planetary 
motions.  The  common  idea,  of  *  every  one  for 
himself,  and  "the  great  Egoist"  take  the  hind- 
most,' is  a  species  of  social  atheism. 

Strife  can  never  be  a  principle  of  community, 
and  our  social  and  industrial  wars  would  rend 
society  to  the  foundation,  were  it  not  for  other 
bonds  and  influences,  which  still  continue  to  bind 
her  into  one.  From  the  Christian  standpoint, 
society  is  seen  to  be  a  moral  scene.  Man  was 
made  for  society.  Each  individual  is  dependent 
on  others  for  multitudinous  offices ;  and  human 
nature  can  only  develop  on  every  side,  in  the 
atmosphere,  and  amid  the  influences  of  society. 
At  bottom,  then,  society  is  a  league  of  mutual 
help,  where  each  assists  the  other,  and  where 
each  has  place,  and  consideration,  and  influence, 
in  the  measure  of  his  worth  and  service.  The 
first  point,  then,  is  not  what  is  due  to  me,  but 
what    am    I    owing,   what    are    my   obligations 


OF  HONOUR  119 

to  the  society  in  virtue  of  all  that  I  have 
received  ? 

At  least,  that  is  the  point  at  which  the  Christian 
strikes  into  every  social  sphere.  Carrying  down 
the  governing  principle  of  his  spiritual  being,  he 
asks  himself, '  What  do  I  owe  for  the  benefits  which 
have  been  conferred  upon  me  ? '  Because  of  the 
safety,  comfort,  and  enriched  resources  of  his  life, 
owing  to  the  public  action  of  others,  he  is  a  debtor 
to  the  community.  He  cannot  selfishly  enjoy,  but 
must  bear  his  part.  And  so,  wherever  Christian 
men  abound,  they  are  to  be  found  responding  to 
obligations,  and,  along  all  lines  open  to  them, 
laying  themselves  out  for  the  public  good.  Take 
the  ceaseless  propaganda  of  Christian  effort,  in 
every  social  sphere — effort  impelled  by  a  Chris- 
tian sense  of  honourable  obligation — out  of  the 
life  of  Britain,  and  in  short  space  the  lack  would 
prove  a  catastrophe.  And  above  and  beyond 
specific  services.  Christians,  because  of  their  open- 
ness to  higher  than  material  needs,  through  their 
spiritual  sympathies  and  interests,  are  weaving 
impalpable  yet  mighty  bonds  of  mutual  trust, 
which  are  holding  millions  together,  beyond  the 
power  of  roaring,  rampant  self,  to  disintegrate. 

It   may  be   said,   however,  that   this   view  of 


126  THE   CHRISTIAN   SENSE 

society  is  not  exclusively  the  product  of  the 
Christian  character.  And  the  allegation  is  true. 
In  so  far  as  natural  elements  in  the  constitution 
of  the  race,  determine  society,  they  move  in 
this  direction.  The  family  is  a  league  of  mutual 
help,  whose  bond  is  love,  in  which  authority, 
though  founded  in  a  natural  relation,  exists,  not 
by  force,  but  as  a  voluntary  concession,  gladly 
made  for  love  and  service's  sake.  The  primitive 
unions,  rendered  necessary  by  the  constant  strife 
which  had  to  be  maintained,  with  rude  nature 
and  ruder  foes,  were  all  leagues  of  service,  in 
which  authority  and  right  sprang  from  service. 
But,  as  universal  experience  shows,  these  have 
had  constantly  to  yield  to  personal  ambitions, 
dynastic  strifes,  class  interests,  introducing  all 
sorts  of  divisive  elements,  to  impair,  and  some- 
times to  annihilate,  this  central  law. 

Is  not  this  very  significant,  that  it  is  the  Chris- 
tian character, — and  conspicuously  that  character, 
when  it  is  lived  fully  and  freely  in  evangelical 
liberty,  and  fed  by  evangelical  truth, — which  has 
reaffirmed  this  natural  law  of  society,  and  given 
what  currency  and  influence  it  possesses  in  this 
modern  world  ?  Yea,  coming  down  from  a  loftier 
sphere — from  a  fellowship  of  love   with  Father 


OF  HONOUR  121 

and  Son  that  awakens  a  new  sensitiveness  to 
obligation — the  Christian  spirit  has  done  more 
than  affirm  a  natural  law  of  service.  It  has 
reconstituted,  widened,  and  deepened  this  natural 
principle,  in  the  Christian  law  of  brotherhood. 
Indeed,  to  reflective  minds,  one  of  the  surest 
proofs  that  Christianity  is  of  God,  lies  in  the 
fact  that  the  spirit  which  it  creates,  allying 
itself  with  all  the  nobler  impulses  of  human 
nature,  gives  them  a  new  birth,  leading  them  out 
of  their  native  bondage,  in  which  they  have  never 
been  able  to  express  themselves,  to  a  fuller  than 
natural  life. 

But  not  only  does  Christian  principle,  working 
in  renewed  characters,  recreate  the  true  idea  of 
society.  It  brings  to  the  realisation  of  its  ideal 
a  far  superior  motive  force, — not  a  law  which  can 
only  touch  exterior  action,  not  a  cast-iron  social 
scheme,  which  to  get  rid  of  inequality  crushes 
individuality,  but  a  moral  and  social  affection. 
Here  we  do  not  refer  to  anything  Utopian,  but 
to  a  practical  impulse,  native  to  human  character, 
and  risen  to  a  new  prominence  in  the  redeemed 
character,  become  a  new  force  through  the  pres- 
ence and  influence  of  Jesus  Christ — the  sense  of 
honour,  the  impulse  to  make  a  return  for  benefits 


122  THE  CHRISTIAN   SENSE 

received.  That  has  already  proved  its  power  by 
acting  through  millions  of  men,  by  transfiguring 
whole  generations. 

How  this  spiritual  motor,  acting  continuously 
on  the  deepest  spring  of  life,  not  only  intensifies 
the  sanction  of  ordinary  obligation,  but  enlarges 
the  scope  of  the  principle  of  obligation,  it  would 
be  very  difficult  in  short  space  to  show.  Because 
Christ  found,  in  the  need  of  man,  an  argument 
for  self-sacrificing  service,  because  the  passion  of 
His  heart  was,  that  we  should  realise  the  divine 
ideal  of  our  lives,  He  has  given  shape  to  the 
ethical  ideals  of  Christian  civilisation.  He  has 
not  simply  codified  and  enforced  rules, — He  has 
done  something  far  profounder  and  more  far- 
reaching.  He  has  called  forth,  in  the  living 
consciousness  of  myriads  of  redeemed  men,  and 
men,  who  have  been  influenced  by  the  ethical 
spirit  of  His  religion,  though  they  have  not  risen 
into  personal  union  with  Himself,  a  reigning 
sense  of  obligation  to  educate,  to  discipline,  to 
organise,  to  Christianise,  at  whatever  cost,  the 
sunken  nations  of  the  world.  Christian  people 
have  bound  these,  as  supreme  behests  of  right- 
eousness and  love,  upon  themselves  and  their 
children,  to  be  done  for  Jesus'  sake.    The  world  is 


OF   HONOUR  123 

moving  forward  on  impulses  of  obligation,  which 
have  positively  been  called  into  being,  within  the 
human  soul,  by  the  larger  ideals,  first  shadowed 
forth,  in  the  Consecration  and  Sacrifice  of  Christ. 

And  further,  from  the  character  of  this  new 
social  motor,  a  whole  set  of  consequences  ensues, 
of  great  variety  and  marked  significance. 

This  being  a  force  working  from  within,  it 
acts  round  the  whole  circle  of  human  interest,  in 
spheres  where  law  cannot  come.  Springing  from 
an  inner  constraint  of  conscience,  and  not  from 
external  compulsion,  there  is  about  such  action, 
a  spontaneity,  a  grace,  an  inwardness,  peculiarly 
its  own.  This  sense  of  honour  freely  operating  in 
consecrated  hearts,  awakens  responsive  emotions 
of  respect,  admiration,  and  chivalrous  devotion. 
The  common  good,  being — in  ultimate  aim  at 
least — the  individual  law,  human  life  is  widened 
in  idea,  heightened  in  the  prevailing  impressions 
of  its  worth.  Generous  and  unselfish  principles 
overpeer  the  coarser  and  more  self-regarding 
impulses,  and  in  hours  of  crisis  and  peril,  prompt 
self-denial  and  sacrifice.  This  is  not  theory,  but 
a  tracing  to  their  individual  root  in  the  Christian 
character,  of  social  potencies,  which  have  largely 
prevailed    in    actual   fact,   giving   distinguishing 


124  THE  CHRISTIAN  SENSE 

honour  to  nations  and  periods,  in  which  they 
were  the  reigning  impulses  of  innumerable  lives. 

And  thus,  working  freely  from  within,  this 
sense  of  honour  fosters  individuality,  while  it 
exalts  the  interests  of  the  community.  The  ages 
of  the  domination  of  Christian  principles,  have 
been  ages  of  marked  individuality.  There  always 
has  ensued  in  such  seasons,  a  blossoming  of  per- 
sonality along  the  whole  line  of  human  activity. 
Men  were  thrown  back,  in  their  longing  to  serve, 
on  themselves,  on  their  native  gifts  of  art,  or 
skill,  or  thought,  or  administration.  Moving  from 
a  pure  inward  influence,  they  revealed  a  quality 
of  vitality,  truth,  genius,  in  all  they  did.  And 
yet,  all  went  for  the  general  good,  towards  the 
common  weal  of  national  worth  and  influence. 

And  through  the  free  action  of  individuality, 
under  this  eager  sense  of  honour,  comes  an  in- 
spiring variety  of  distinctions  and  diversities 
among  men,  each  standing  in  the  rank  of  his 
service,  receiving  the  place  and  the  reward  in- 
herently his  due.  And  so  emerge  in  their  true 
place,  the  problems  of  human  rights,  which  are 
to  be  considered  at  length  in  next  chapter. 

Have  we  not  here  the  power  which,  when 
fully  applied,  can  renovate  and   lift  to   a   truly 


OF  HONOUR  125 

ethical  level  the  whole  social  organism,  rein- 
forcing ordinary  obligations,  creating  the  spirit 
which  makes  service  a  joy,  and  widening  the 
horizon  of  obligation,  to  include  everything 
which  makes  for  the  higher  life  of  man  ?  All  this 
is  in  the  line  of  the  true  culture  of  the  human 
personality.  Whatever  elements  of  socialism  or 
communism  may  be  suitably  introduced,  must 
come  as  the  prompting  of  this  larger  ethical 
spirit.  Those  forcible  rearrangements  of  society, 
having  for  their  end  the  equalising  of  external 
conditions,  without  any  moral  preparation  of  the 
human  spirit,  could  in  and  by  themselves  secure 
but  little,  and  would  introduce  new  evils,  more 
disastrous  than  those  which  they  seek  to  remove. 
And  what  a  caput  mortiiuin  every  such  scheme  is 
seen  to  be,  beside  this  free  living  growth,  securing 
the  good  of  the  whole,  while  giving  full  play  to 
the  individuality  of  every  man  ;  grounding  right 
in  service  ;  giving  to  the  lowest  a  freeman's  place 
on  the  ground  of  service,  and  to  the  highest,  what- 
ever may  be  his  fairly-won  honours  or  rewards, 
only  a  servant's  place  for  the  good  of  the  whole. 


CHAPTER    IV 

THE   CHRISTIAN    DOCTRINE   OF   SOCIAL   RIGHTS 

In  last  chapter  we  learned  from  an  Eastern  fable 
the  value  of  a  right  point  of  view.  As  the  very 
word  might  teach  us,  society  is  a  state  of  mutual 
help,  where  obligations  arise  because  of  help 
given  and  received,  and  in  which  a  sense  of 
honour  is  at  work,  moving  men  to  recognise  and 
discharge  obligation.  The  problem  of  rights,  then 
— of  what  is  due  to  us  under  a  certain  state  of 
society  —  is  a  secondary  problem,  rising  out  of 
obligations  conferred  by  us,  and  limited  by  the 
general  good  of  society  as  a  whole. 

Of  course,  as  we  saw  in  our  chapter  on  the 
Christian  idea  of  the  True,  the  Christian  spirit 
carried  with  it  into  society  a  certain  view  of 
the  worth  of  human  life,  and  of  the  greatness 
of  human  destiny,  which  created  a  new  sense 
of  what  was  due  to  man  as  man.  That,  how- 
ever, affected  and  affects  all  men  alike.  It  is  a 
presupposition  underlying  the  whole  problem  of 

126 


DOCTRINE  OF  SOCIAL  RIGHTS     127 

rights,  not  a  principle  entering  into  the  problem, 
determining  in  individual  cases  specific  rights. 
These  are  determined  by  the  law  of  service  to 
the  community,  and  in  consistency  with  the 
interests  of  the  community,  as  we  have  described. 
Now,  it  is  of  the  utmost  importance  to  realise 
that  this  is  the  sole  ground,  and  the  single 
measure,  of  the  validity  of  social  right  in  the 
Christian  view.  The  natural  foundations  of 
society — in  the  family,  and  in  the  common  ne- 
cessities of  men — of  themselves  would  lead  us 
to  this  conclusion.  But  it  is  the  whole  con- 
texture of  thought,  carried  down  into  society 
by  Christian  men,  and  expressed  in  their  judg- 
ment and  action,  which  mainly,  if  not  solely, 
enforces  that  view  to-day.  Because  of  the 
central  relation  of  his  life  to  Christ  and  God, 
the  Christian  is  eager  to  recognise  service,  to 
own  obligation,  to  concede  claims  of  right  on 
the  ground  of  obligation.  His  obedience  to  his 
Lord  is  love-service  for  benefits  rendered.  He 
recognises  Christ's  unmeasured  right  over  him, 
even  to  life  itself,  because  of  what  He  has  done. 
The  Christian  is  a  decentralised  man,  not  only 
as  living  from  a  new  centre,  but  as  bound  to 
another  will.      His   whole   life   moves  from   the 


128      THE  CHRISTIAN  DOCTRINE 

point  of  surrender,  and  is  animated  and  upheld 
in  all  activity  by  the  divine  power,  flowing 
through  surrender. 

Such  a  daily  discipline  in  the  holy  places  of 
the  soul,  devoted  to  continual  study  of  God's 
rightful  claims,  and  in  submission  thereto,  must 
train  the  soul  in  the  perception  and  discrimina- 
tion of  mutual  right.  Because  of  this  vision 
of  right  on  the  highest  plane,  a  new  sense 
of  the  sanctity  of  right  will  be  carried  through 
the  whole  of  life. 

But  not  only  have  we  this  deepened  sense  of 
right,  from  the  burden  of  personal  obligation 
arising  out  of  Christ's  glorious  work  on  our 
behalf  In  that  apocalypse  of  love,  we  are  carried 
past  all  provisional  ideas  of  existence,  into  its 
very  essence.  We  see  that  God  Himself  is  love, 
an  impulse  to  serve.  His  authority  does  not 
stand  on  force ;  but,  like  the  light  from  the  sun 
establishing  the  glory  of  the  orb  of  day,  is  the 
discovered  supremacy  of  His  love.  He  has 
given  all,  with  an  instinctively  lavish  hand,  to 
call  out  the  sense  of  obligation  in  His  intelligent 
creatures  ;  so  that  meeting  his  rightful  claims,  they 
might  rise  on  the  ladder  of  law,  into  fellowship 
with  Himself.     God  has  made  us  so  dependent, 


OF  SOCIAL  RIGHTS  129 

that  we  might  grow  up  in  a  network  of  relations, 
each  with  its  own  service,  and  creating  a  separate 
obligation.  He  caused  the  race  to  develop  from 
a  single  pair,  that  the  filaments  of  relationship 
may  go  searching  into  the  farthest  parts,  and 
out  to  the  bounds  of  the  world.  While  life  was 
largely  on  the  lower  planes,  and  the  moral  was 
undeveloped,  or  possibly  ill-developed,  systems 
of  authority — parental,  magisterial,  social,  civil, 
religious — impinged  on  the  will.  But  as  man 
drew  near  his  majority,  in  the  highest  region 
of  all,  that  of  spirit,  God  threw  the  direct  dis- 
cipline of  law  away,  and  recovered  men  to  the 
service  of  right,  by  the  sole  magnetism  of  divine 
love. 

Mere  authority  then  yields,  as  belonging  to 
the  period  of  pupilage.  Christ  stands,  in  the 
majesty  of  His  unlimited  and  uncontested  rights, 
on  the  grounds  of  service.  Yea,  the  law  of  God 
is  so  unspeakably  sacred,  because  it  has  in 
ineffable  measure  the  soul  of  service,  being  a 
self-communication  of  the  divine,  by  which  a 
created  being  of  yesterday,  and  rising  up  from 
animal  levels,  might  come  through  service  into 
fellowship  with  God  Himself. 

Right,  then,  stands  on  service,  and  is  in  the 
I 


I30      THE   CHRISTIAN   DOCTRINE 

measure  of  service.  And  this  holds  not  simply 
of  the  relations  of  individuals  to  individuals, 
but  of  natural  and  political  institutions.  There 
is  a  strong  tendency  for  all  authority  to  assume 
the  absolute  form,  and  for  multitudes  to  give 
an  unthinking  and  unlimited  obedience.  But 
every  institution  has  a  soul  of  service,  like  the 
universal  purpose  of  God,  in  which  these  separate 
elements  stand.  And  in  their  measure  of  service 
to  man,  and  to  the  fulfilment  of  the  divine 
purpose  in  which  man  is  to  reach  his  crown, 
lie  the  range  and  depth  of  their  rightful  authority. 
As  a  matter  of  fact,  the  most  sacred  of  these 
institutions  is  limited  in  a  great  variety  of 
ways  in  accordance  with  this  principle.  Direct 
parental  authority  over  the  decisions  and  actions 
of  children  is  limited  to  the  season  of  dependence. 
With  the  dignity  of  self-conscious  existence 
and  self-mastery,  come  inalienable  rights  to  free 
personal  decision.  Parental  authority  henceforth 
lives  on,  in  the  personal  ascendency  of  the  father 
and  mother,  won  in  long  years  of  relationship ; 
and  in  the  widening  consciousness,  as  life  opens 
out,  of  the  permanent  blessing  secured  by  parental 
discipline  in  earlier  years. 

In  like  manner  the  authority  of  Monarchy  in 


OF  SOCIAL  RIGHTS  131 

Britain  has  been  modified  many  times,  because, 
under  antiquated  forms,  it  was  ceasing  to  serve 
the  highest  interests  of  a  nation,  growing  in  the 
capacity  of  wise  self-government.  Service  really 
limited  allegiance,  and  justified  the  introduction 
of  those  limitations  involved  in  democratic  insti- 
tutions. And  Monarchy  has  been  rehabilitated, 
and  is  a  power  in  our  midst,  because  fully  re- 
cognising its  circumscribed  powers,  and  trusting 
the  really  operative  forces  of  government,  our 
sagacious  Queen  has,  in  many  ways,  so  con- 
spicuously served,  not  only  the  cause  of  order, 
but  the  highest  interests  of  the  people. 

The  principle  which  we  have  enunciated,  then, 
holds  in  the  widest  and  most  unlimited  sense. 
And  from  this  certain  very  important  conse- 
quences ensue.  Since  right  is  founded  on  service, 
and  is  a  social  or  public  recognition  of  service, 
the  interest  of  the  community  accordingly  is  put 
in  the  first  place.  No  social  scheme,  cramping 
individuality  by  subjection  to  an  all-embracing 
central  control,  could  provide  for  the  common 
interests  better  than  this.  Yet,  so  far  as  the 
spirit  of  Christ  obtains  in  men,  this  is  secured 
not  by  tyrannous  external  constraint,  but  by  an 
internal  vital  principle.       The  Christian  society 


132      THE  CHRISTIAN   DOCTRINE 

is  a  fellowship  of  mutual  help.  Service  to  the 
community,  and  to  other  individuals  in  this 
community,  creates  obligations.  Rights  are  what 
a  man  possesses  in  virtue  of  obligations  of 
others  to  him.  And  being  freely  conceded  to 
him,  the  rights  are  upheld  by  law,  that  is,  by 
the  judgment  and  strong  arm  of  the  com- 
munity. 

While  the  community  is  safeguarded,  then,  the 
inherent  rights  of  individuals,  as  factors  in  that 
community,  are  also  conserved.  As  we  saw  in 
last  chapter,  the  strongest  incentives  are  brought 
to  bear  on  individuality  —  the  fullest  place  is 
given  to  it  for  social  ends.  And  what  is  justly 
due  to  the  individual  actor  is  sacredly  conserved. 
It  is  significant,  that  where  the  Christian  view 
of  society  most  fully  obtains,  there  individual 
rights  are  inviolable,  and  the  administration  of 
the  law  which  deals  with  them  is  most  con- 
spicuously pure  and  above  reproach ;  whereas 
the  rights  that  stand  on  conquest,  or  mere  pre- 
scription, in  absence  or  in  violation  of  equity, 
have  proved  unstable  in  every  age. 

But  it  is  far  too  little  to  say,  that  under  this 
Christian  view  the  community  is  safeguarded. 
While  the  rights  of  individuals    are  conserved. 


OF  SOCIAL  RIGHTS  133 

the  interests  of  the  community  are  enormously 
enhanced. 

By  unwise  liquidation,  trustees  may  forfeit 
the  most  precious  portion  of  their  assets.  In 
its  eagerness  to  pool  the  national  resources,  that 
every  one  may  share  alike,  socialism  squanders, 
or  at  the  least  immensely  reduces  in  value,  its 
most  precious  asset,  human  individuality.  It 
would  cramp  individual  freedom,  and  annihilate 
individual  incentive.  Contrariwise,  the  Christian 
sense  of  honour,  widening  the  horizon  of  life, 
moving  men  to  live  for  the  whole,  since  influences 
from  the  whole  have  gone  to  mould  them,  spurs 
individual  gift  to  vigorous  independent  exercise. 
The  Christian  is  under  no  necessity, — as  in  some 
socialist  schemes, — of  toiling  in  the  communal 
workshop,  feeding  at  the  communal  dining-table, 
and  sleeping  in  the  communal  caravanserai. 
He  is  free  to  follow  his  impulse,  whether 
prophetic,  or  artistic,  or  scientific,  or  practical. 
And  so,  from  the  wellheads  of  great  human 
spirits,  rivers  of  invigoration  have  flowed  into 
the  life  of  the  race.  Lives  have  been  spent, 
with  absolutely  no  result  at  the  time — lives 
which  never  would  have  approved  themselves, 
to    any    possible    leaders   of  any  possible  social 


134      THE  CHRISTIAN  DOCTRINE 

schemes— which  in  their  quality  and  in  the 
magnitude  of  their  ultimate  result,  have  made 
humanity  their  debtors.  Under  a  religious  in- 
spiration, they  lived  in  the  whole  and  in  the 
far,  for  ends  with  which  none  sympathised  then, 
from  which  all  profit  now. 

We  saw  in  the  previous  chapter  that  the 
Christian  sense  of  honour  not  only  strengthened 
obligations  actually  existing,  but  greatly  widened 
and  refined  the  sense  of  obligation.  And  now 
from  the  standpoint  of  right,  we  can  see  precisely 
the  footing  on  which  these  obligations  stand. 
They  are  not  counsels  of  perfection,  which  a 
man  can  safely  disregard  without  failing  in  the 
discharge  of  any  positive  duty.  They  belong  to 
a  view  of  existence,  which  a  man  can  only  be 
in  harmony  with,  by  loyally  carrying  out,  from 
centre  to  circumference.  For  what  is  the  very 
idea  of  life?  Creation  is  a  service,  in  which 
the  soul  and  essence  of  Deity  are  expressed.  It 
has  been  called  into  being  in  order  that  in 
million-fold  finite  variety,  His  glory  might  stand 
discovered  to  His  creatures.  And  His  end  in 
this  discovery  is,  that  under  the  sense  of  obliga- 
tion, rendering  to  God  His  rightful  service,  we 
may  come  into  spiritual  communion  with  Him- 


OF  SOCIAL  RIGHTS  135 

self.  The  nimbus  of  that  divine  destiny  hangs 
over  every  human  being.  Whatever  he  may 
be  in  himself,  God,  whose  purpose  of  loving 
service  originated  all,  planned  that  place  and 
career  for  him.  If,  then,  by  how  much  I  am 
debtor  to  a  brother  for  service  rendered,  I  must 
recognise  a  right  as  belonging  to  him — it  may 
be  to  honour,  or  it  may  be  to  wages,  or  it  may 
be  to  a  position  of  authority — much  more  must  I 
recognise  God's  overwhelming  right  (because  I  owe 
everything  to  Him)  to  have  His  great  purpose, 
so  far  as  may  be  possible,  respected  and  fulfilled. 
Again,  if  I  invest  these  merely  human  rights 
with  sanctity,  using  the  force  of  the  community 
to  uphold  them,  against  invasions  of  selfishness 
and  wrong,  so  must  I  invest  with  far  more 
sanctity  the  rights  of  God,  because  they  touch  a 
region  in  me  which  the  law  cannot  coerce,  and 
press  claims  which  the  sword  cannot  enforce. 
They  are  not  less  binding,  but  more. 

But  how  can  we  meet  these  duties  of  so  strict 
obligation  ?  Where  are  they  to  be  found  ?  They 
lie  within  the  general  aim,  they  emerge  in  the 
effort  of  giving  effect  to  that  great  purpose  of 
God,  within  which  we  stand  and  under  which  we 
have  received  our  blessings.      Here  the  Christian 


136      THE  CHRISTIAN   DOCTRINE 

conscience  is  only  imperfectly  educated  as  yet. 
Philanthropy  is  a  kind  of  surplusage  to  most 
men.  We  have  still  to  feel  as  we  ought,  in 
downright  reality,  the  cosmic  passion  as  the 
basal  law  of  social  life.  Our  selfishnesses  and 
swollen  ambitions  and  huge  accumulations  of 
wealth  are  eccentricities,  excesses,  diseases  of 
society,  as  much  as  goitre  or  elephantiasis  are 
diseases  of  the  body.  We  are  all  living  for  a 
social  end,  fixed  in  the  very  frame  of  existence, 
and  in  the  purpose  of  God.  We  reach  the 
highest  personal  good  as  we  fit  into  the  whole, 
occupying  to  the  full,  and  along  every  avenue  of 
faculty,  the  sphere  which  He  has  given. 

And  beyond  the  circuit  of  civilised  life  (where 
service  leads  to  the  creation  of  rights,  and  rights 
are  vantage-grounds  for  further  service),  lie  in 
one  direction  the  sunken,  barbarous,  and  unpro- 
gressive  nations  of  the  world.  They  have  not 
come  into  the  fellowship  of  civilised  peoples. 
But  as  we  sometimes  read  of  wards  in  chancery, 
they  are  God's  wards,  being  kept  alive  for  that 
destiny  into  which  it  is  His  will  that  they  should 
come.  And  so  the  very  point  of  honour,  in 
Christian  hearts,  is  to  meet  this  unfulfilled  part 
of   God's    purpose,    to    discharge    to    Him    this 


OF  SOCIAL  RIGHTS  137 

neglected  task — and  not  along  one,  but  along 
every  line  by  which  they  can  be  rrJsed  in  the 
scale  of  being.  True,  there  are  other  motives — 
subsidiary  motives  of  kindred,  prospective  motives 
of  consequences — which  would  accrue.  But  here 
we  are  on  the  ground  of  positive  obligation,  and 
where  obligations  are  at  the  strongest,  because 
here  the  sense  of  what  is  due  to  God  singly 
determines  us,  and  we  arc  on  the  main  track  of 
His  purpose. 

But  not  only  in  regard  to  the  sunken  unde- 
veloped nations  of  the  world,  does  this  stringent 
obligation  come  in.  We  are  in  fellowship  with 
God  now,  because  while  there  was  one  possibility 
of  rescue,  He  resolved  never  to  give  us  up,  even 
though  our  ruin  was  the  direct  result  of  our  own 
sin.  Christ  has  created  an  immeasurable  sense 
of  the  worth  of  man  by  His  sacrifice  on  their 
behalf.  He  gave  Himself,  to  make  the  divine 
ideal  possible  in  every  case.  And  whatever  we 
do  to  one  soul  with  this  intent,  we  do  as  unto 
Christ.  So,  under  the  strictest  sense  of  obliga- 
tion, we  put  ourselves  in  the  place  of  drunkards, 
the  unclean,  social  waifs  of  every  description  ; 
not  seeking  for  them  a  mere  bodily  content  and 
painless   death,  but  that  they  may  come  to  the 


138      THE  CHRISTIAN  DOCTRINE 

height  of  God's  purpose  for  them.  To  go  back 
on  our  figure  of  the  steam  motive-power,  keeping 
the  vast  factory  humming  with  manifold  energy; 
as  the  power  of  Christ  drives  us,  so  we  are  carried 
round  the  great  circle  of  God's  will.  And  Chris- 
tian philanthropy  has  a  beneficence  beyond  all 
other,  because  in  meeting  present  material  need, 
it  does  not  leave  out  the  soul,  and  conscience, 
and  God. 

But  there  is  a  further  point  of  immense  im- 
portance, to  which  we  must  devote  what  remains 
of  this  chapter.  Because  this  whole  conception 
of  society  and  of  social  rights,  distinguishes 
between  a  natural  or  real  ground  of  right,  and 
legal  sanction  and  confirmation  of  right,  there 
rests  in  the  society  the  perennial  power  of 
adjusting  right  to  the  actual  condition  of  suc- 
ceeding times,  and  to  varying  circumstances. 
All  human  progress  is  more  or  less  one-sided. 
Defect  attaches  universally  to  terrene  things. 
And  therefore,  while  the  general  principles  which 
we  have  been  enunciating,  may  have  more  or  less 
been  actuating  men,  yet  some  may  have  arrived 
at  particular  wrong  judgments  as  to  what  was 
due,  in  one  case  or  in  another.  This  may  have 
arisen  from  one  class  having  a  preponderance  of 


OF  SOCIAL  RIGHTS  139 

influence,  or  another  being  denied  its  just  share 
of  influence.  Or  it  may  have  come  from  an 
actual  change  in  the  conditions  of  society,  which 
has  made  privileges  that  were  reasonable  in  one 
age,  preposterous  in  another. 

This  adjustment  of  rights  to  the  actual  con- 
dition of  things  in  a  new  time,  involving  as  it 
does  the  withdrawal  of  old  privilege,  is  always 
difficult.  When  men  have  had  no  common 
ground  on  which  to  confer,  the  attempt  has 
proved  the  parent  of  revolution.  And  even  when, 
through  the  potency  of  the  Christian  spirit,  there 
has  been  a  common  ground,  such  adjustment  has 
been  far  from  easy.  The  very  sacredness  of 
right,  and  the  respect  for  law  which  this  spirit 
creates,  makes  men  reluctant,  save  under  the 
spur  of  necessity,  to  raise  settled  matters,  and  to 
adjust  new  boundaries  of  right  and  duty.  And 
so  moderation,  and  a  strong  tendency  to  con- 
serve whatever  is  defensible  —  the  very  pillars 
of  national  stability — have  marked  the  leading 
Christian  nations,  and  especially  our  own. 

Yet  the  Christian  spirit,  grounding  social  rights 
on  service,  is  never  at  ease  when  rights  are  pushed 
in  excess  of  their  inherent  validity,  or  when  they 
stand    on   foundations   of   mere  statute,  all  real 


140      THE  CHRISTIAN   DOCTRINE 

claims  being  wanting.  British  history  contains 
magnificent  proof,  through  the  entire  course  of 
its  annals,  of  this  notable  fact.  At  first,  in  days 
of  storm  and  stress,  too  much  power  it  was 
thought  could  not  be  centred  in  the  king,  and  in 
the  nobles,  who  bore  with  him  the  burden  of 
national  defence.  But  when,  external  defence 
assured,  the  internal  activities  of  business,  social 
administration,  study,  and  worship,  assumed 
larger  prominence,  the  rights  of  the  king  and  of 
the  nobles  must  undergo  limitation,  in  order  that 
the  classes  and  the  masses,  who  were  making  so 
large  a  contribution  to  the  commonweal,  should 
have  their  due  share  of  privilege  and  liberty. 
That  is  the  history,  in  effect,  of  the  British  people, 
from  the  days  of  the  Heptarchy  to  the  present 
hour.  What  the  Puritans  accomplished  in  relation 
to  kings,  what  our  reforming  forefathers  achieved 
in  relation  to  the  privileged  classes,  labour  is 
striving  to  secure  from  capital, — a  more  equitable 
adjustment  of  mutual  rights.  And  the  power  of 
the  enlightened  conscience  of  such  a  nation  as 
ours,  may  be  seen  in  the  constitutional  changes 
to  which,  from  time  to  time,  the  nation  has  con- 
sented, that  every  interest  may  be  represented, 
that  to  all  justice  may  be  done. 


OF  SOCIAL  RIGHTS  141 

We  think  that  there  will  be  no  serious  doubt 
on  the  part  of  fair-minded  inquirers,  that  these 
influences  are  traceable  in  the  main,  to  the 
potencies  which  flow  into  society  from  the 
Christian  character.  If  any  mind,  however,  be 
still  in  a  state  of  questioning  on  this  point,  two 
facts  should  set  that  questioning  at  rest.  The 
first  is  the  undeniable  effect  of  the  Reformation 
in  fostering  the  spirit  of  liberty.  The  other  is 
the  cognate  fact  that  in  every  nation  which 
enjoyed  the  influence  of  that  great  movement, 
the  struggle  for  religious  rights  and  privileges 
(with  which  we  are  not  dealing  in  these  chapters), 
preceded  and  paved  the  way  for  the  successful 
assertion  of  civil  rights. 

Along  with  a  conservatism  which  is  slow  to 
innovate,  the  Christian  spirit  thus  brings  into 
society  an  incorruptible  sense  of  right,  which 
must  seek  towards  its  ideal,  along  every  line,  and 
in  every  department  of  the  national  life.  There 
is  no  problem  too  high  for  this  spirit  to  face, 
too  difficult  for  it  to  unravel.  The  short  cuts  of 
force,  revolution,  war,  as  solving  nothing,  are 
abhorrent  in  its  regard.  The  Christian  conception 
of  society  and  of  social  right,  as  grounded  on 
service,   give    it    time,    will,   even    in    the    most 


142     DOCTRINE  OF  SOCIAL  RIGHTS 

entangled  questions,  work  by  moral  means,  by- 
mutual  conference  and  compromise,  to  larger 
right  and  wider  harmonies  of  truth.  And  if 
defects  remain,  the  primary  truth  of  society  is 
not  right,  but  service.  Let  a  man  live  for  others, 
and  he  shall  have  his  reward,  if  not  at  the  hand 
of  society,  then  from  God. 


CHAPTER    V 

PURITY 

We  now  come  into  the  region  in  which  we 
shall  see,  over  against  an  irresistible  tendency 
to  decay,  the  most  commanding  social  potency 
of  the  Christian  character.  The  more  or  less 
artificial  organism  of  society,  rests  on  the  natural 
and  divinely-created  organism  of  the  family.  It 
is  most  instructive  to  reflect,  that  the  enormous 
superstructure  of  organised  human  life  in  tribes, 
kingdoms,  empires,  rests  on  a  foundation  not  in 
the  world  of  matter,  but  of  mind,  in  an  emotional 
appetency  between  the  man  and  the  woman — 
in  the  presence  of  a  spiritual  factor,  that  of  love. 
Here  we  have  our  most  immediate  and  domestic 
proof,  that  the  whole  bulk  of  the  seen  springs 
out  of  the  unseen,  that  all  material  existence 
rests  at  bottom  on  a  foundation  of  soul. 

We  can  understand,  then,  how,  as  the  life  of 
the  tree  depends  on  pulses  of  force  constantly 
flowing    in    from    without,    the    life    of    society 

143 


144  PURITY 

depends  chiefly  on  the  nature  of  the  central 
impulse  flowing  in  to  sustain  the  whole.  Where 
it  is  corrupt,  corruption  extends  through  the 
entire  frame.  In  its  purity  and  elevation,  society 
is  vitalised  and  lifted  to  a  nobler  plane. 

It  is  entirely  incorrect,  accordingly,  to  treat 
the  relation  between  the  sexes  and  the  mar- 
riage-bond, as  a  specific  case  of  related  right  and 
obligation,  and  nothing  more.  We  are  here  at 
the  vital  source  of  human  society,  dealing  with 
the  sovereign  pulse  which,  forming  the  family 
bond,  perpetuates  the  generations.  Here,  if  any- 
where, we  must  be  near  the  original  fountains 
of  life,  the  uncreated  impulse  from  which  the 
visible  springs.  Civilised  life,  with  its  innumer- 
able relations  of  social  service  and  accruing  right, 
is  the  outcome  of  this  master  relation  kept  pure; 
while  pollution  here  involves  the  organised  life 
of  man,  no  matter  how  developed  its  civilisa- 
tion, or  strong  its  social  sanctions,  in  cancerous 
pollution  and  decay. 

What  broke  up  every  nation  of  the  ancient 
world,  and  eminently  the  world-state  of  Rome, 
the  heir  of  all  their  power,  was  in  a  peculiar 
degree  corruption  in  this  central  spring.  Not 
to  mention  the  imperishable  indictment  of  Paul 


PURITY  145 

one  has  but  to  walk  the  streets  of  disentombed 
Pompeii,  or  to  weigh  the  evidence  incidentally 
given  in  Latin  literature,  to  rest  assured  of  this. 
And  perhaps  the  social  crown  of  Christianity 
thus  far,  the  circumstances  in  which  she  has 
most  fully  displayed  on  the  arena  of  society 
her  signal  and  solitary  power,  has  been  in  lifting 
European  life,  even  so  far  as  it  has  been  lifted, 
out  of  the  tangle,  pollution,  and  corrupt  atmo- 
sphere of  old  heathen  uncleanness,  in  creating 
new  and  ineffably  loftier  standards  of  personal 
purity,  in  elevating  the  relations  of  the  sexes, 
in  a  word,  founding  the  Christian  home.  Other 
potencies  of  the  Christian  character  only  began 
to  discover  their  resources  of  force,  at  later  stages, 
but  from  the  dawn  of  the  Kingdom  of  Christ 
this  regenerating  breath  of  purity  has  been 
breathed  into  human  society ;  and,  dissatisfied 
with  all  past  attainments,  still,  like  a  reviving 
ozone,  is  it  blowing  over  the  world. 

When  one  inquires  what  in  the  Christian 
character  has  produced  these  results,  it  is  diffi- 
cult to  isolate  and  localise  the  specific  cause. 
Everything  distinctive  of  that  character  has  con- 
tributed to  this  influence.  Still,  there  is  one 
element  in  a  redeemed  experience  which  stands 
K 


146  PURITY 

out  from  all  the  others,  as  the  environing  sanc- 
tion of  the  Christian  sense  of  purity.  There  is 
upon  our  renewed  nature  the  consecrating  touch 
of  a  divine  affection.  We  are  in  union  with 
God,  because  we  have  been  loved  with  an  infinite 
love.  And  with  the  thrill  of  this  undeserved  love, 
there  has  come  an  awestruck  sense  of  the  price- 
less worth  of  that  nature,  for  which  Christ  could 
make  so  great  a  sacrifice.  Yea,  even  that  does 
not  convey  an  adequate  impression  of  the  might 
of  holy  love  which  makes  for  purity.  There  is 
one  aspect  under  which  this  truth  appears  con- 
stantly in  the  Epistles  of  Paul.  This  love  of 
Christ  is  made  real  and  mighty,  as  a  force  within 
the  soul,  by  the  illumination  of  the  indwelling 
Spirit.  Natural  perceptions  are  weak,  but  the 
Holy  Ghost  makes  heavenly  things  more  real 
than  the  mightiest  realities  of  earth.  *  Know  ye 
not  that  your  bodies  are  temples  of  the  Holy 
Ghost  ? ' 

And  so  for  all  renewed  men  and  women, 
heathen  opinion,  heathen  pollutions  of  thought 
and  feeling,  were  annihilated  by  the  consecra- 
tion of  a  holy  saving  love.  Not  merely  the 
lower  levels  of  society,  nor  the  coarser  elements 
of  the  higher  classes,  had  succumbed  to  pagan 


PURITY  147 

corruption.  The  foul  leprosy  of  evil  had  per- 
meated all  life.  Among  the  companions  of 
Socrates  we  find,  from  the  pellucid  prose  of  Plato, 
those  tainted  with  the  unnameable  sin,  which 
has  been  barred  out  by  terrible  civil  penalty 
from  the  modern  state.  Yet  neither  this  Grecian 
sage,  nor  he,  whose  genius  has  made  him  visible 
to  the  world,  manifests  any  horror  or  discovers 
an  atom  of  feeling,  as  if  that  were  a  thing  ex- 
ceptional and  to  be  deplored.  In  Christianity, 
however,  there  was  a  new  beginning,  a  clean 
break  with  the  past.  Within  the  Christian  pale 
were  men  and  women  of  many  classes,  yet  mostly 
the  weak  and  the  poor,  to  whom  not  only  such 
evils  themselves,  but  the  thoughts  which  gave 
them  birth,  were  impossible ;  who  attached  such 
a  worth  to  human  life,  and  put  upon  character 
such  an  honour,  that  even  the  secret  far-off  thought 
of  sin  was  an  intolerable  indignity  and  shame. 

On  the  face  of  it,  such  an  effect,  even  in  a  small 
minority  of  lives,  was  manifestly  divine.  Nothing 
could  have  produced  such  a  revolution  save  a 
power  beyond  man.  And  so,  in  accordance  with 
the  thought  of  Shakespeare, 

*  How  far  that  little  candle  throws  his  beams  I 
So  shines  a  good  deed  in  a  naughty  world,' 


148  PURITY 

these  individual  examples  of  life  on  a  new  plane 
had  a  wide-reaching,  discovering  power.  The 
uncleannesses  of  the  old  world  were  laid  bare 
as  in  a  purer  light.  Reason,  explain,  excuse, 
brazen  out  as  they  pleased,  these  things  were 
sin,  and  they  had  no  cloak  for  their  sin.  Ancient 
heathenism  fell  into  utter  collapse,  and  dis- 
appeared from  the  ways  of  men,  far  less  through 
argument  and  change  of  belief,  than  because  in 
face  of  a  new  purity,  sufficiently  realised  to  be 
an  actual  social  force,  the  incurable  uncleanness 
of  her  worship  and  life,  stank  in  the  nostrils  of 
men. 

Of  the  further  victories  of  this  spirit  through 
the  centuries,  over  rude,  barbarian  peoples — in 
creating  the  sentiment  of  chivalry,  in  refining 
the  relations  and  enlarging  the  intercourse  of 
the  sexes,  and  finally  in  opening  for  woman  a 
public  career  by  the  side  of  man, — the  limits  of 
this  chapter  will  not  permit  specific  mention. 
The  influence  of  this  spirit  is  as  active,  at  the 
present  time,  as  in  any  former  age.  Yea,  in 
face  of  a  reactionary  drift  of  opinion,  distinctly 
due  to  material  views  of  life,  the  Christian  spirit 
is  powerfully  working,  and  in  many  directions, 
to  secure  for  women  a  larger  place  in  the  pro- 


PURITY  149 

gressive  movements  which  are   shaping  a  better 
future  for  mankind. 

It  is  a  mere  commonplace,  that  the  material 
is  an  emblem  of  the  spiritual.  The  courses  of 
recent  thought  have  led  us  to  emphasise  that 
truth.  But  we  do  not  discern,  as  we  should,  how 
the  higher  and  more  articulate  world  of  the 
spiritual  not  only  illustrates,  but  influences,  our 
life  on  more  ordinary  and  material  levels.  Not 
only  has  that  love  relation,  into  which  we  have 
been  brought  by  the  sacrificing  love  of  Christ, 
kindled  a  spirit  of  purity  in  individual  souls, 
it  has  come  down  with  transfiguring  power  into 
the  natural  institution  of  the  family.  Strengthen- 
ing its  bonds,  hallowing  its  relations,  heightening 
its  influence,  the  Christian  spirit  has  lifted  to 
a  new  region  of  feeling  the  sense  of  kindred. 
Into  the  old  irresponsible  authority  of  fatherhood, 
extending  to  life  and  death,  it  has  infused  a 
high  and  tender  sense  of  responsibility.  Into 
the  instinctive  yearning  of  the  mother-heart,  it 
has  breathed  a  spiritual  longing,  not  merely  for 
physical  comfort  to  the  offspring,  but  for  intel- 
lectual and  moral  nurture.  The  new  religious 
horizons  of  the  soul,  and  heaven,  and  God,  have 
invested  with  fresh  dignity  and  larger  meaning, 


ISO  PURITY 

family  life.  The  children  have  become  not 
merely  dependants  to  be  subdued,  but  a  sacred 
charge  to  be  won.  The  atmosphere  of  the  home 
changed  from  law  to  love.  The  family  affections 
and  the  family  relations,  as  we  know  them, 
came  to  be  formed. 

And  so,  in  a  state  of  things  charged  with 
innumerable  forces  of  evil,  there  has  been  set  up 
a  generating  centre  of  ethical  life,  the  Christian 
family,  which  is  pouring  into  society  clean, 
refined,  tender,  sympathetic,  intelligent,  pious 
personalities,  that  are  the  salt  of  the  earth, 
bearing  the  race  on  and  up,  in  spite  of  the  world, 
the  flesh,  and  the  devil,  age  by  age.  Every 
footstep  is  a  fall  arrested.  All  progress  is  a 
surmounting  of  possible  disintegration  and  decay. 
And  the  mightiest  lever,  which  keeps  lifting 
mankind  above  every  possible  catastrophe,  is 
this  Christian  home,  the  earthly  school  of  human 
affections,  moral  integrity,  spiritual  principles. 

After  a  couple  of  months  spent  among 
Mohammedan  peoples,  we  found  ourselves  one 
Sunday  evening,  during  the  spring  of  1898,  in 
the  Christian  quarter  of  Damascus.  Returning 
to  our  hotel  from  the  Mission  Hospital,  we 
came  across  the  Christian  population,  family  by 


PURITY  151 

family,  in  the  open  air.  The  Christian  house- 
hold is  a  self-respecting  institution,  that  can 
bear,  and  seeks,  the  light.  His  family  arrange- 
ments the  Moslem  swathes  in  secrecy,  since 
they  are  beneath  what  the  best  in  him  approves. 
And  because  of  this  openness  of  the  Christian 
family  life,  a  network  of  social  influence  is 
created,  not  only  enriching  existence  by  pro- 
ducing a  pleasant  variety  of  interest  and  occu- 
pations, but  strengthening  its  moral  stability. 
After  the  unpleasing  spectacle  of  sealed  harems, 
and  closely-veiled  ladies,  driven  in  strictly- 
guarded  vehicles  through  the  streets,  the  sight 
of  husband  and  wife  walking  side  by  side  in  the 
open  light  of  day,  strong  in  the  liberty  of  mutual 
trust  and  love,  and  with  their  children  clinging 
to  their  hands,  or  dancing  round  their  knees, 
seemed  like  a  glimpse  from  a  nobler  state  of 
being. 

The  very  joy  of  such  family  affection  raises 
the  moral  temperature  of  the  world.  A  social 
life  springs  up,  which  is  the  extension  of  the 
family  spirit,  fostering  healthy  sympathies,  and 
engaging  human  hearts,  in  pleasures  that  are 
pure,  in  engagements  that,  while  they  gratify, 
refine  and  educate.     Ofttimes  we   look   askance 


iS2  PURITY 

at  social  occupations  and  gaieties,  but  while  we 
may  have  reason  to  frown  upon  too  exclusive 
a  devotion  to  those  enjoyments,  let  us  also 
remember  that  they  are  eliminating  the  darker 
and  grosser  possibilities  from  a  vast  number  of 
lives,  and  keeping  them,  in  their  very  pleasures, 
within  the  circle  of  purity,  under  the  control  of 
higher  influences. 

We  constantly  forget  to  what  extent  society, 
in  its  wider-  bearings  and  larger  interests,  is  a 
Christian  and  not  a  natural  fact.  Take  away 
the  spirit,  which  Christianity  has  created,  of  self- 
respect  and  mutual  trust,  the  high  average  of 
purity,  the  moral  and  spiritual  sympathies,  the 
prevailing  sense  of  responsibility  to  God  environ- 
ing life ; — and  those  social  fellowships  in  study, 
in  art,  in  culture,  in  philanthropic  effort,  so 
quickening  to  individual  gift  and  character, 
would  disappear.  Human  life  would  segregate, 
be  kept  apart  by  mutual  fear,  suspicions, 
jealousies,  as  in  Mohammedan  and  pagan  lands. 

The  difference  between  the  civilised  and  the 
savage  man,  lies  chiefly  in  the  degree  to  which 
the  sentiment  of  humanity  has  come  to  govern 
the  former,  and  the  larger  human  influences 
to   prevail,   over    those   which    are    more   selfish 


PURITY  153 

and  personal.  Yet  had  not  corrosive  sensual 
passion  been  subdued  by  this  spirit  of  Christian 
purity,  lives  would  not  have  been  set  free  in 
large  numbers  to  live  on  that  nobler  plane. 
From  this  single  consideration,  we  may  judge 
how  largely  the  higher  activities  and  associations 
of  human  beings  owe  their  continuous  exercise 
and  unbroken  strength  to  the  strong  sanction 
of  purity,  springing  in  ever-living  force  from  the 
consciences  of  Christian  men. 

Then,  as  life  becomes  rich,  various,  full  of 
social  sympathies,  pure  affections,  wide  interests, 
lofty  aspirations,  men  become  an  object  of 
interest  to  themselves.  And  so  a  literature 
springs  up,  reflecting  the  lights  and  shades  of 
human  nature,  telling  the  story  of  individual 
character,  idealising  specific  excellences,  de- 
scribing great  achievements,  exhibiting  the  lines 
of  human  progress. 

But  to  all  these  outcomes  of  the  Christian 
sense  of  purity  is  to  be  added,  as  directly 
originating  therefrom,  the  place  and  influence 
of  woman  in  modern  life.  This  is  eminently  a 
case  where  only  the  historical  method,  carried 
into  minute  detail,  could  show  the  social  potency 
of  Christian  Personality  acting  steadily  over  the 


154  PURITY 

area  of  Europe,  and  through  centuries,  in  mould- 
ing woman  for  higher  place,  and  creating  for  her 
ever  more  commanding  social  positions.  And  in 
such  an  inquiry  every  detail  would  be  of  interest, 
even  those  extremes  of  opinion  in  one  direction, 
and  in  the  other,  which  could  not  perpetuate  them- 
selves, as  being  untrue  to  a  balanced  view  of  life 
— the  ascetic  extreme,  and  the  more  chivalrous 
excesses  of  spiritualised  passion,  and  knightly 
devotion.  They  revealed  the  new  leaven  at  work 
in  the  old  lump  of  humanity.  They  were  half 
truths,  disappearing  in  these  particular  forms,  to 
reappear  modified,  and  enriched,  and  balanced, 
by  new  conceptions,  and  hold  the  ground  of 
common  conviction. 

A  great  subject,  too,  is  the  blossoming  of  the 
womanly  nature,  in  the  sunshine  of  this  juster  and 
kindlier  view  of  her  position,  and  functions,  and 
possibilities.  Here  we  have  had  a  positive  evolu- 
tion before  our  eyes,  very  remarkable,  even  within 
the  observation  of  those  now  living.  Their  place 
in  the  advanced  life  of  the  world,  the  parts  taken 
by  them  even  in  the  realm  of  thought,  the  burden 
of  business  and  public  responsibility  which  they 
successfully  bear,  their  moral  influence  and  social 
service,  are  an  indispensable  and  immense  factor 


PURITY  155 

in  civilisation,  won,  from  what  is  a  sealed  and 
cloistered  world  in  Mohammedan  lands,  by  the 
supremacy  of  the  Christian  Spirit. 

Singularly  kind  and  considerate  in  many 
respects,  the  old  Jewish  law  seems  to  us  savage 
in  its  ruthless  punishment  of  uncleanness.  Such 
deeds  as  that  of  Phinehas  send  a  thrill  of  horror 
through  the  modern  mind.  And  one  notices  the 
same  extreme  severity  in  other  primitive  codes. 
They  were  nearer  the  fundamental  truths  of 
society  than  we  are.  They  saw  that  licence 
meant  social  extinction,  purity  social  develop- 
ment and  strength.  Let  our  lawgivers  see  to 
it,  that  their  whole  authority  be  given  to  brand 
licence  and  safeguard  purity,  not  to  safeguard 
licence  and  break  down  the  awful  sanctions, 
social  and  religious,  of  purity ;  else  will  they 
introduce  into  this  magnificent  creation  of  present 
civilisation  the  cancer  of  an  inevitable  decay. 


CHAPTER    VI 

CHRISTIAN   ESTHETICS 

Beauty  is  the  overflow  of  personality.  On 
any  other  supposition  than  that  of  a  creative 
personality,  as  the  original  of  all  things,  the 
pervasive  element  of  beauty  is  inexplicable.  In 
the  struggle  for  existence,  of  which  a  material 
evolution  speaks,  only  those  qualities  would  be 
developed,  which  were  useful  for  the  perpetuation 
of  the  individual.  Beauty  in  that  case  would 
be  something  which,  as  a  by-product,  must  have 
come  in  by  the  way.  Even  when  Mr.  Darwin 
set  himself  to  explain  its  presence,  he  could  only 
touch  the  fringe  of  the  subject,  by  supposing  that 
the  gayer  colours  of  the  male  served  the  ends  of 
the  race,  by  making  him  more  attractive  to  the 
female.  Intellectual  theories  have  dwelt  on  the 
exquisite  adjustments  of  the  all-planning  mind, 
the  marvellous  symmetry  of  living  organisms,  and 
so  forth.  Still,  we  are  only  in  the  outer  courts 
of  this  great  sanctuary  of  natural  beauty.     We 

156 


CHRISTIAN  .ESTHETICS  157 

might   have    exquisite    adjustments,   as    witness 
many  of  the  works  of  man,  without  loveliness. 

What  gives  the  last  redeeming  touch  of  beauty 
to  the  least  of  natural  objects?  While  our 
works  of  utility,  like  the  steam-engine,  are  so 
far  removed  from  beauty,  how  do  things  that 
serve  the  commonest  necessities  of  man— the  oats 
upon  their  stalk,  the  spears  of  grass  in  the  field, 
the  pine  advancing  its  firm  foot  to  the  precipice 
edge— gleam  with  ineffable  loveliness?  We  have 
a  clue  to  that  in  what  we  find  among  ourselves. 
The  human  spirit,  reaching  out  as  yet  to  but  a 
feeble  and  uncertain  mastery  of  itself,  lives  only 
in  sides  or  fragments  of  its  own  being.  When  it 
aims  at  the  useful,  it  seeks  merely  what  is  useful, 
forgetting  everything  else  — pouring  its  smoke 
into  the  air,  its  pollution  into  the  stream,  rearing 
its  heaps  of  rubbish  in  huge  unshapely  masses, 
building  its  foundries  and  factories  in  hideous 
violation  of  every  aesthetic  law.  Even  in  man, 
however,  there  is  a  brooding  spirit  which  shapes 
from  within,  under  forms  of  its  own  thought, 
either  events  which  have  actually  transpired, 
or  incidents  and  characters  ideally  reproduced 
through  the  medium  of  poetry  and  fiction.  And 
to  this  world  of  art,  this  effluence  of  the  human 


158  CHRISTIAN  ESTHETICS 

spirit  in  ideal  creation,  something  of  that  quality 

or    character    of    beauty    belongs.       Over    the 

commonest  things  there  comes 

'The  light  that  never  was  on  sea  or  land, 
The  consecration,  and  the  poet's  dream.' 

What  attaches  itself  to  some  works  of  man, 
gleams  from  every  work  of  God.  He  lives 
entirely  in  all  He  does.  His  slightest  works 
have  some  trace  of  Himself,  some  effluence  of 
His  inner  being.  In  all  secondary  and  im- 
mediate ends.  He  is  ever  reaching  on  to  the 
master  end  of  self-discovery.  And  so  a  chance 
aggregation  of  vapours  in  the  upper  air,  glistens 
at  sunrise  as  with  the  presence-glory  of  God, 
or  tones  the  far  landscape  with  ethereal  purples 
that  thrill  the  soul. 

Beauty  is  the  overflow  of  personality.  In  all 
ages  from  the  dawn  of  time,  when  men  became 
conscious  in  the  stress  of  war  of  the  potencies 
slumbering  in  themselves,  or  when  by  any  form 
of  human  mastery  over  enemies  or  elements  they 
attained  an  intenser  joy  of  existence,  the  instinct 
to  invest  the  possessor  of  such  power  with  visible 
honour  became  very  strong.  This  thought  came 
to  us,  in  the  place  of  all  others  in  which  to 
study   prehistoric    man    to   best   advantage, — we 


CHRISTIAN  ESTHETICS  159 

mean  Copenhagen,  in  the  Museum  of  Northern 
Antiquities  there.  No  need  to  tell  the  attentive 
student  that  life  was  a  struggle,  for  weapons 
of  death,  tools  and  appliances  for  defence,  come 
first.  But  with  the  slackening  of  the  terrible 
pressure,  comes  gleaming  gold  ornament,  often 
of  great  beauty,  for  the  conquering  Thane,  or 
for  his  wife,  who  strengthened  his  hand  and 
perpetuated  his  race.  Yea,  beyond  that  period 
in  the  earliest  stone  age,  side  by  side  with  the 
stone  axe,  you  find  the  amber  bead. 

When  wearied  of  national  limits,  men  like  the 
third  Thothmes,  or  Seti  I.,  or  Rameses  II.,  thirsted 
for  virtual  world  dominion,  their  augmented  self- 
consciousness,  as  they  stretched  their  dominion 
from  Nubia  to  the  fountains  of  the  Euphrates, 
expressed  itself  in  vast  temples,  rivalling  almost 
the  limestone  hills  in  their  buttressed  strength, 
their  enclosed  valleys  in  their  pillared  courts ; 
and  standing  there,  ostensibly  to  the  pale  deities 
whom  they  worshipped,  but  really  to  their  own 
honour  and  praise. 

The  ages  of  sheer  and  rampant  egoism  passed, 
and  in  the  Greek  peoples,  a  finer  spirit — a  breath 
of  liberty,  a  sense  of  patriotism,  a  spirit  of  in- 
quiry, a  feeling  of  the  supremacy  of  truth — began 


i6o  CHRISTIAN  ESTHETICS 

to  spread  through  the  world.  And  the  reflection 
of  this  was  at  once  discovered,  in  a  perception  of 
beauty,  a  sense  of  form,  new  in  that  day,  and 
in  its  own  way  unrivalled  since.  The  human 
spirit  thoroughly  awakened,  and  entering  with 
joy  into  all  the  life  spread  before  it  in  the  world, 
tried  to  solve  the  riddle  of  being  and  destiny. 
In  this  these  Greeks  utterly  failed.  The  iron  limits 
of  the  world,  and  their  own  faculty,  shut  them  in. 
They  knew  that  in  their  highest  quests  they  had 
not  attained.  But  because  they  so  loftily  strove, 
they  carried  away  with  them  a  manifold  realisa- 
tion of  the  covering  veil  of  personality,  beauty, 
which  makes  their  creations  models  for  all  time. 
Yet  'To-day's  brief  passion  limits  their  range.' 

'  Growth  came  when,  looking  your  last  on  them  all, 

You  turned  your  eyes  inwardly  one  fine  day 
And  cried  with  a  start  — What  if  we  so  small 

Are  greater,  ay,  greater  the  while  than  they  ! 
Are  they  perfect  of  lineament,  perfect  of  stature  ? 

In  both,  of  such  lower  types  are  we 
Precisely  because  of  our  wider  nature  ; 

For  time,  theirs — ours,  for  eternity.'  ^ 

With  Christ,  a  whole  new  world  opened  on  the 
vision  of  man.  He  rose  up  to  greet  an  im- 
measurable destiny,  then  turned  from  the  stony 

^  Browning's  Old  Pictures  at  Florence. 


CHRISTIAN   ESTHETICS  i6i 

perfections    of    form    to    paint    the    soul.      As 
Browning  goes  on : 

'  Paint  man,  man, — whatever  the  issue ! 
Make  the  hopes  shine  through  the  flesh  they  fray, 

New  fears  aggrandise  the  rags  and  tatters. 
So  bring  the  invisible  full  into  play, 

Let  the  visible  go  to  the  dogs — what  matters?' 

Following  down  this  course  of  thought,  we  can 
see  how,  emerging  into  the  world  of  the  spiritual, 
the  believer  should  see  a  new  loveliness  investing 
all  life,  outward  and  inward,  of  the  body  and  the 
soul.  The  Christian  spirit  has  in  special  degree 
been  alive  to  the  sense  of  beauty,  because  it  has 
been  brought  close  to  the  Divine  Personality, 
and  to  that  Personality  discoverable  in  all  the 
aspects  of  His  essential  loveliness.  God  has 
unveiled  Himself  in  a  divine-human  Personality, 
that  grew  amid  trial  into  an  ideal  grace  of 
character ;  that  blossomed  into  the  awful  love- 
liness of  an  Infinite  Sacrifice ;  that  came  near, 
through  sacrifice  into  a  tender  sympathy,  rival- 
ling all  that  men  have  dreamed  of  friendship  or 
love  ;  and  that  has  brought  us  thus  into  living 
fellowship  with  the  divine  glory,  discovered  in 
essential  beauty  by  the  Holy  Spirit.  Above 
self-interest,  beyond  hope,  the  soul  is  thrilled  in 

L 


i62  CHRISTIAN   .ESTHETICS 

every  sense  by  the  spectacle  of  intellectual  and 
moral  beauty,  in  infinite  display  for  human  good. 
As  the  light  that  has  travelled  ninety  millions  of 
miles,  breaks  through  the  cottage  window,  and 
plays  on  a  sanded  floor,  so  the  ideal  glories  of 
God  are  brought  down  in  the  Gospel,  to  be  the 
foundation  of  our  common  hopes,  and  the  spring 
of  our  daily  conduct. 

Thus  beyond  and  above  devotion  to  truth,  a 
reigning  sense  of  obligation,  the  just  perception 
of  rights,  and  the  uncompromising  spirit  of 
purity,  there  is  an  ideal  element — a  thirst  for 
the  perfect,  the  consummately  fair — which  crops 
up  in  many  directions,  as  a  potency  of  the 
Christian  character.  True  in  many  respects,  the 
very  height  and  splendour  of  these  spiritual 
associations  withdrew  believers  from  the  visible. 
Art  was  so  largely  associated  with  idolatry,  and 
catered  so  extensively  to  the  sensuous  side  of 
existence,  that  it  might  well  seem  one  of  the 
elements  of  heathenism,  to  be  resisted  and  over- 
thrown. Taxed  to  the  utmost  to  maintain  an 
organised  existence,  and  in  frequent  peril  of 
their  lives,  they  were  wholly  absorbed  in  the 
immediate  spiritual  tasks  of  the  kingdom.  Yet 
the   sense   of  beauty  was  diverted    into  deeper 


CHRISTIAN  ESTHETICS  163 

regions,  not  extinguished.  A  new  moral  and 
spiritual  loveliness  marked  their  moral  and 
spiritual  relationships.  In  early  days  of  storm 
and  stress,  men  and  women  could  only  show 
the  sense  of  ideal  beauty,  which  ravished  their 
inmost  souls,  in  chivalries  of  love  and  honour, 
in  lives  keyed  to  utter  sacrifice,  in  the  quiet 
poetry  of  pure,  unselfish  lives. 

Then  from  the  very  beginning,  there  was  the 
common  element  of  worship.  The  soul  of  music 
found  expression  in  new  modes,  captivating  to 
the  common  heart.  The  words  of  common 
prayer  shaped  themselves  into  a  melody  of 
human  speech,  grave  with  the  new  solemnities 
of  eternity,  but  rich,  and  sweet,  and  tender,  with 
pulsing  human  love.  And  audiences  felt  the 
spell  of  an  oratory  which,  however  rude,  stirred 
regions  of  the  soul-^and  these  the  deepest— 
which  Attic  and  Roman  eloquence  left  cold. 

Soon,  too,  came  the  conscious  desire  to  por- 
tray in  visible  form,  what  moved  so  profoundly 
the  heart.  Fragments  of  song  passed  into  cur- 
rency. Christian  art,  in  feeble  first  endeavour, 
began  its  glorious  race.  From  the  rudimentary 
outlines  of  the  Roman  house,  as  Dr.  Lanciani 
has  been  teaching  us,  rose  the  stately  basilica, 


i64  CHRISTIAN  ESTHETICS 

blossomed  into  hitherto  unimagined  richness  and 
dignity  the  Gothic  minster.  These  were  genuine 
fruits  of  the  Christian  spirit.  As  the  Divina 
Comniedia  of  Dante  and  the  frescoes  of  Giotto 
and  Orcagna  show,  the  men  of  that  era  lived 
under  an  overshadowing  infinite.  Glimpses  of 
the  ideal  good  in  cross  and  passion  stirred  their 
spirits  ;  and  so  they  lavished  upon  magnificent 
works  of  art  all  the  wealth  and  talent  of  their 
generations ;  and  ransacked  nature  for  every 
copiable  form  of  natural  beauty,  rearing  those 
edifices  which  have  been  the  marvel  and  the 
admiration  of  later  times. 

In  the  Reformation,  man  escaped  from  pupil- 
age. The  Roman  despotism,  which  had  strained 
its  authority  over  reason  and  conscience,  was 
cast  out  from  many  nations  of  Europe.  Men 
came  into  direct  personal  relation  to  God  ;  and 
problems  of  life,  character,  knowledge,  filled  the 
foreground  of  thought.  The  Christian  sense  of 
beauty,  however,  only  broke  out  in  new  direc- 
tions. Not  the  society  but  the  individual,  not 
the  great  central  sanctuary  but  the  microcosm 
of  the  human  soul,  began  to  attract  the  brooding 
mind  of  artist  and  poet.  Spenser  fancies  an 
ideal  fairy  scene,  where  the  vices  and  the  virtues 


CHRISTIAN   ESTHETICS  165 

contend  for  the  mastery  of  man.     Shakespeare, 
with  an  unrivalled  width  of  horizon,  reproduced 
in  dazzling  brilliance  and  variety  of  delineation, 
this  actual   world,   with   the    moral    springs  and 
laws  of  action,  so   utterly  laid    bare  that  he  is 
reckoned  among  the  greatest  ethical  teachers  of 
mankind.     Milton  sought,  by  a  magnificent  tour 
de  force,   to    realise    imaginatively    the   spiritual 
world  in  which  the  redeemed  man  moved,  within 
the  poles  of  fall  and  uprise,  to  life  eternal.     And 
Bunyan,  in  his  immortal  allegory,  visualised  the 
progress  from  justification  to  glory,  of  individual 
souls.      In  this  subjective  sphere  there  was  not 
the  same  scope  for  pictorial  art.     But  music,  with 
her^  undreamt-of   resources   of  imaginative   and 
emotional  expression,  took  the  great  themes  of 
human    faith,  and    unrolled    their   splendours   of 
feeling  and  aspiration,  in  the  great  oratorios. 

One  immediate  effect  which  followed  the  larger 
life,  consequent  on  direct  communion  with  God, 
was  a  larger  consciousness  of  self.  Everything 
belonging  to  man  and  man's  faculties,  and  to  the 
material  universe,  his  home,  became  of  intense 
interest.  And  so  there  grew  up  modern  litera- 
ture in  all  fields— the  essay,  the  familiar  epistle, 
the  story,  the  poetry  of  life  and   manners.     As 


i66  CHRISTIAN  ESTHETICS 

men  advanced,  under  the  overshadowing  person- 
ality of  God,  to  a  wider  and  more  varied  interest 
in  their  own  beings,  Nature  began  to  speak  with 
a  more  articulate  voice,  and  sensitive  spirits 
threw  themselves  out,  to  understand  and  appre- 
ciate its  message.  Covvper,  driven  from  the  dis- 
tempered world  of  his  inner  being,  found  in 
Nature  a  blessed  refuge,  a  presence  of  calm  and 
joy ;  and  he  has  reproduced  both  its  vaster  and 
minuter  appearances,  with  a  vivid  accuracy  which 
has  made  his  landscapes  immortal.  Wordsworth 
sank  deeper  and  saw  further  into  the  life  of 
things,  setting  the  infinite  variety  of  Nature's 
visible  charms,  in  the  rare  atmosphere  and  serene 
light  of  the  Spiritual  Presence  which  informed 
all.  Ruskin,  tracing  all  the  beauty  of  human 
achievement  to  ethical  principles,  became  also 
a  chief  interpreter  of  natural  loveliness  to  these 
generations. 

And  so  Nature  has  become  more  and  more  the 
visible  garment  of  God,  and  men  have  become 
correspondingly  skilled  to  appreciate  the  million 
subtle  beauties  of  *  this  mighty  universe  of  eye 
and  ear,'  the  witchery  of  light  and  atmosphere. 
A  whole  literature  has  arisen,  fixing  in  the  per- 
manent colours  of  art,  the  fleeting  appearances  of 


CHRISTIAN  ^ESTHETICS  167 

earth,  and  sea,  and  sky.  As  writers  like Carlyle  and 
Ruskin  have  touched  the  living  core  of  moral  fact, 
they  have  become,  in  unexampled  degree,  pictorial, 
their  words  being  dyed  with  the  hues  of  sunrise, 
palpitating  with  the  fresh  life  of  things  visible. 

In  the  other  potencies  of  which  we  have  written, 
we  have  described  forces  that  have  directly  gone 
to  the  shaping,  upbuilding,  and  stability  of  human 
society.      This  potency— at  least  from  ordinary 
standpoints — seems  to  touch  what  is  ornamental 
rather  than  of  necessary  use.     Indeed,  there  is  a 
negative  side  which  cannot  altogether  be  ignored. 
We  find  a  celebrated  saying  of  Schiller,  quoted 
by  Ruskin  {Modern  Painters,  vol.  iii.  134),  'That 
the  sense  of  beauty  never  furthered  the  perform- 
ance  of  a    single  duty.'      But    that   is   to   push 
aesthetics    beyond   their  sphere,  to  expect  more 
than   is   in   beauty,  or  art  its    minister,  to  give. 
Beauty  is  the  pictured   garment   of  personality. 
Its  function    is   to   shadow   forth    things   of  the 
soul,    under    visible    colour   and    form.       If  the 
moral  inspiration  be  behind  the  beautiful  form, 
the  artistic  expression  multiplies  the  impression, 
and  brings  it  home  as  a  reality  to  the  common 
heart.      Bunyan's  allegory  has  brought  Bunyan's 
theology    home    to    myriads    who    could    not    be 


i68  CHRISTIAN  .ESTHETICS 

persuaded  to  read  a  theological  book.  Millet's 
pictures  held  forth  the  peasant  life  of  France — 
in  its  strength,  cruel  limitations,  and  forbidding 
realism,  with  an  occasional  gleam  of  the  ideal 
— as  an  ethical  fact  before  the  world.  Mrs. 
Stowe's  Uncle  Tom  was  a  factor  in  the  emanci- 
pation of  the  slave. 

True,  being  but  the  pictured  garment  of 
Personality,  Art  is  unmoral.  Its  function  is  to 
represent  reality.  It  may  be  used  to  represent 
the  virtues  of  some  successful  soap-boiler's  craft, 
or  degraded  to  incite  the  lower  propensities 
of  men,  or  so  exercised  as  to  express  a  soft 
luxurious  habit,  hostile  at  once  to  virtue  and 
enterprise.  These,  however,  are  prostitutions  of 
a  noble  capacity.  Beauty  is  the  overflow  of 
personality,  an  instinct  which  the  soul  in  every 
exalted  mood  seeks  to  gratify.  Every  absorb- 
ing passion  of  human  nature  seeks  the  large 
utterance,  the  consecration,  the  immortality  of 
art.  If  we  have  not  great  artists,  in  the  highest 
sense,  that  is  because  we  are  in  broken  water, 
between  a  withdrawing  past  and  an  unrealised 
future.  Still,  we  have  Watt's  ideal  conceptions, 
with  their  large  suggestiveness.  And  Browning 
in  Said^  and  the  Epistle  of  an  Arab  Physician^ 


CHRISTIAN   ESTHETICS  169 

and  Death  in  the  Desert^  and  Abt  Vogler^  and 
Rabbi  Ben  Ezra,  and  Christmas  Eve,  and  Easter 
Day  (to  name  poems  which  come  first  to  our 
pen),  makes  the  pensive,  much  labouring  soul 
of  the  cultivated  man,  conscious  of  the  bodiless 
phantasms  of  many  a  brooding  hour,  embodied 
now  in  shapes  of  beauty,  and  standing  forth  in 
clear  definition  —  the  dramatis  personcE  of  his 
own  soul. 

God  first  sought  to  discover  Himself,  by  the 
creation  of  this  fair  universe.  Man  seeks  full 
discovery,  in  such  imaginative  creation  as  is 
within  his  power.  If  the  unveiling  to  us  of 
His  Personality  be  the  master  end  of  God,  over- 
topping  all  lower  and  lesser  ends  of  particular 
utility ;  and  if  the  cultivation  of  our  personal 
life,  into  full-toned  harmony  with  the  Divine,  be 
our  chief  business,  the  sense  of  beauty  as  a 
potency  of  the  Christian  character  may  not  be 
disregarded.  From  the  visible  splendours  of 
creation,  we  have  got  the  conceptions  under 
which  we  fashion  to  ourselves  the  spiritual  glories 
of  God.  And  when,  through  Nature's  million 
shapes  of  loveliness,  we  have  realised  something 
of  the  glory  of  Him  who  is  invisible,  these  be- 
come in  turn  emblems, — a  great  picture-language 


I/O  CHRISTIAN    ESTHETICS 

by  which  we  make  visible  to  others  the  Unseen 

and  Divine. 

'The  unfettered  clouds  and  region  of  the  heavens 
Tumult  and  peace,  the  darkness  and  the  light — 
Were  all  like  workings  of  one  mind,  the  features 
Of  the  same  face,  blossoms  upon  one  tree  ; 
Characters  of  the  great  Apocalypse, 
The  types  and  symbols  of  Eternity, 
Of  first,  and  last,  and  midst,  and  without  end.' 

Wordsworth's  Prelude,  Book  vi. 


CHAPTER   VII 

THE   CHRISTIAN    WORTH   OF   REPUTATION 

We  have  already  seen  how,  in  the  various  social 
spheres,  the  Christian  personality  carves  out  for 
itself  courses  of  action,  in  harmony  with  its  in- 
herent qualities,  and  the  spiritual  life  in  which  it 
lives,  thus  manifesting  distinct  social  potencies, 
and  exerting  influences  of  a  very  remarkable 
kind.  We  have  now  to  point  out  that  because 
of  these  activities,  Christianity  has  in  a  sense 
created,  certainly  has  brought  into  new  promin- 
ence, another  sphere  of  being — above  law,  higher 
than  common  human  fellowship,  the  sphere  of 
personal  spiritual  influence.  God  is  a  person, 
and  the  goal  of  His  activity  is  personalities,  not 
in  isolation,  but  cultivated  in  fellowship  with 
each  other  and  with  God,  to  the  highest  personal 
excellency  and  collective  action.  And  so  in 
reaching  forth  to  the  social  ideals  of  which  we 
have  spoken,  the  play  of  sanctified  character, 
the   discovery   of   personal    excellence,   and    the 

171 


172         THE  CHRISTIAN  WORTH 

controlling   influence   of    personal   qualities,   are 
of  the  first  moment. 

We  move  one  another,  not  mechanically,  but 
by  the  impalpable  touches  of  one  personality 
on  the  other.  Here,  there  is  a  freemasonry  of 
spirits,  more  subtle  than  thoughts,  incapable  of 
expression  in  language.  We  are  charmed  by 
a  character  which  we  have  never  had  time  to 
analyse.  Instinctively  we  discern  in  others  a 
dumb  note,  a  lack  of  feeling,  a  moral  in- 
sensitiveness,  which  awakens  a  sense  of  alarm. 
And  not  only  all  combinations,  but  all  degrees 
of  intellectual  and  moral  personality,  communi- 
cate themselves,  in  the  most  delicate  touches,  to 
the  soul.  The  business  of  the  world  is  carried 
on,  by  the  ceaseless  arrangements  and  rearrange- 
ments of  personal  affinities.  In  Stockholm 
recently,  we  were  struck  with  the  magnitude 
of  the  Telephone  tower,  as  witnessing  to  the 
astonishing  number  of  the  exchanges,  carried 
through  this  medium,  in  that  lovely  capital. 
But  we  have  a  far  vaster  system  of  exchanges, 
affecting  much  more  profoundly  the  higher  life 
of  the  world,  exchanges,  not  merely  of  messages 
about  trade, — transmissions  of  thought,  of  pas- 
sion, of  aspiration,  forming    reigning   trends   of 


OF  REPUTATION  173 

feeling  and  disposition  in  circles  and  societies 
of  men.  Every  church,  every  lecture-hall,  every 
newspaper-office,  every  drawing-room, — indeed, 
every  place  where  human  beings  congregate, — is 
such  an  exchange,  where,  by  the  clash  of  indivi- 
dual opinions,  and  the  impact  of  personal  char- 
acter, parties  are  formed,  positions  are  assumed, 
lines  of  action  are  resolved  on,  and  practical  aims 
and  standards  of  conduct  are  fixed. 

Never  till  Christ  came,  however,  and  only  in 
the  measure  in  which  His  truth  has  been 
realised,  has  the  glory  of  human  personality 
been  seen. 

What  has  made  and  makes  the  Christian 
personality  so  forceful,  touching  life  at  many 
points,  and  working  with  a  sure  and  continuous 
and  cumulative  influence,  that  has,  to  an  extent 
quite  extraordinary,  changed  the  face  of  society  ? 
We  need  to  know  this,  that  we  may  realise  the 
social  resources  that  are  in  the  hands  of  the 
Church.  We  need  to  grasp  the  true  situation  as 
it  evolves  before  us,  in  order  that  we  may  discover 
at  what  point  we  had  best  direct  our  energies, 
to  heighten  in  days  to  come  that  influence  which 
has  accomplished  so  much  in  the  past. 

There    are    two    elements    of    the    Christian 


174         THE   CHRISTIAN   WORTH 

character  to  be  specially  noted  in  this  con- 
nection. They  seem  utterly  opposed,  mutually 
destructive,  yet  they  only  accentuate  each  the 
other's  influence.  The  Christian  is  a  decentralised 
man.  He  has  died  to  self,  renounced  all  in- 
dividual ambitions.  And  yet,  according  to  the 
immortal  paradox  of  Christ,  that  loss  of  self 
only  leads  to  an  enlarged  possession  of  self,  to 
a  fuller  use  and  enjoyment  of  all  his  faculties ; 
and  so  to  heightened  personal  influence  and 
social  power.  The  crucifixion  of  self  does  not 
mutilate  the  real  man  ;  it  only  cuts  at  the  root 
the  destructive  potencies  of  the  old  man.  The 
soul  draws  away  from  its  foolish  and  fleshly 
and  self-willed  activities,  refuses  to  act  along 
these  lines  any  more ;  and  being  put  out  of 
all  conceit  with  itself,  yields  every  power  into 
the  hand  of  God,  that  He  may  use  them  all  for 
His  glory. 

Decentralised,  God-possessed,  these  are  the 
reigning  qualities  of  the  new  man.  But  we  must 
pause  for  a  moment  to  emphasise  the  nature  of 
this  possession.  The  Spirit  does  not  overbear 
the  surrendered  nature  which  He  comes  to  fill. 
Entering  into  the  deeps  of  each  human  per- 
sonality, He  works  with  the  nature,  not  as  over- 


OF  REPUTATION  175 

riding  it.  With  marvellous  humility  He  respects 
our  power  of  free  self-decision.  He  takes  what 
of  our  being  we  put  into  His  hands,  and,  work- 
ing in  and  with  our  faculties,  He  enlightens  and 
strengthens  us  for  personal  choice,  in  the  line  of 
God's  will  of  course,  but  also  of  our  own  powers, 
and  of  the  opportunities  open  to  us  in  His  pro- 
vidence. What  is  built  up  by  His  power,  and 
with  the  manifold  assistance  of  God's  grace,  is 
a  distinctive  human  character,  in  which  natural 
gifts  and  spiritual  qualities  are  wrought  up  into 
the  unity  of  a  spiritual  personality,  to  some 
extent  original,  standing  separate  from  all  other 
personalities,  and  revealing  with  natural  indi- 
viduality a  distinct  type  of  religious  excellence. 
As  the  lily  differs  from  the  rose,  and  both  from 
the  flowering  hawthorn,  or  the  pendulous  birch, 
so,  working  with  the  numberless  varieties  of 
natural  character,  and  with  human  free-will,  the 
Spirit  of  God  is  building  up,  in  wellnigh  infinite 
diversity,  human  types  of  the  one  perfect  life  in 
Christ.  And  with  this  end  in  view — that  from 
these  innumerable  phases  of  spiritual  beauty, 
each  precious  in  its  own  degree,  human  and 
angelic  beings  may  rise  to  some  conception  of 
the  infinite  fulness  of  Him  who  is  all  in  all. 


176  THE  CHRISTIAN   WORTH 

Dr.  Martineau,  in  his  Study  of  Religion,  shows 
that  the  power  to  which  conscience  bows,  is 
not  mere  law,  but  moral  principle  exhibited  in 
character.  Types  of  natural,  moral  excellence 
are  the  moving  forces  which  are  continually 
raising  the  level  of  natural  moral  character. 

His  words,  as  beautiful  in  form  as  sound  in 
substance,  are  eminently  worthy  to  be  quoted 
and  pondered.  *  For  our  true  moral  life  and 
education,  we  are  dependent  on  the  presence  of 
some  higher  nature  than  our  own  ;  without  which 
the  mere  subjective  feeling  of  the  relative  worth 
among  the  springs  of  action,  would  rarely  pass 
from  knowledge  into  power.  All  the  dynamics 
of  character  are  born  of  inequality,  and  lie  asleep 
amid  unbroken  equilibrium.  To  mingle  only 
with  those  on  the  same  level  with  ourselves,  and 
encounter  nothing  but  ethical  self-repetitions, 
is  the  surest  way  to  stunt  the  possibilities  of 
growth ;  nor  does  any  activity  of  the  retired  and 
solitary  mind,  though  given  to  subjects  deep 
and  high,  avail  to  carry  its  affection  to  greater 
altitudes.'! 

And  here  again  we  discern  how,  fitting  into 
a  root  tendency  of  human    nature,  Christianity 

1  Martineau's  Study  of  Religion,  vol.  ii.  p.  30. 


OF  REPUTATION  177 

carries  that  tendency  to  a  higher  plane,  and 
makes  it  a  force  in  her  spiritual  kingdom.  By 
means  of  these  decentralised,  renewed.  Spirit- 
quickened  lives,  built  up  into  distinct  types  of 
excellence,  Christ  is  primarily  erecting  His  own 
spiritual  kingdom,  and  secondarily  is  pouring 
into  society  those  purifying  and  transfiguring 
influences  which  in  part  we  have  described.  Ye 
are  the  salt  of  the  earth — the  antiseptic  force 
arresting  corruption,  the  moral  savour  heighten- 
ing the  meaning,  accentuating  the  worth  of  life  ; 
— and  this  to  the  whole  earth,  the  power  in 
humanity  that,  making  head  against  decadence 
of  every  form,  can  carry  life  to  higher  levels, 
and  make  it  capable  of  new  moral  and  social 
developments. 

With  all  our  understanding  of  this  fact,  we 
must,  if  we  would  reach  out  to  the  Christian  ideal, 
give  it  profounder  heed.  The  mighty  thing  in 
religion  is  not  organisation,  but  the  new  creation 
which  vitalises  organisation,  the  life  in  God  which 
is  not  only  a  spring  of  forceful  individuality,  but 
a  new  basis  and  bond  of  human  fellowship.  In 
these  decades  and  generations,  when  everything, 
making  for  the  natural  and  against  the  distinc- 
tively spiritual,  has  had  full  play  in  our  most 
M 


178         THE  CHRISTIAN   WORTH 

widely  accepted  literature,  we  have  not  been 
realising  how  immensely  the  spiritual  rises  above 
the  natural  character  in  this  respect.  Christianity 
has  increased  the  power  of  character  as  an 
elevating  social  influence  many  million  times. 
There  are  myriads  upon  myriads  of  lives  to-day, 
which  never  once  have  been  named  in  print,  nor 
are  known  a  dozen  miles  from  home,  that,  like 
moral  magnets,  are  holding  communities  aloof 
from  evils,  and  in  the  practice  of  laudable  and 
virtuous  customs,  keeping  them  at  a  high  level  of 
public  opinion,  securing  pure  conditions  of  social 
life,  frowning  down  every  abuse  which  erects  its 
head,  every  corruption  which  insinuates  its  poison, 
and  so  maintaining  and  advancing  the  civilisation 
of  the  world. 

On  the  plane  of  earth  we  have  had  Napoleons 
mighty  to  aggrandise,  Alarics  and  Attilas  with 
marvellous  outflashing  potencies  of  destruction. 
But  among  the  constructive  forces,  especially 
among  those  which  have  gone  against  passion 
and  interest,  in  developing  conscience  and  build- 
ing up  the  higher  life  of  men,  where  can  you  find 
personalities  fit  to  be  named  beside  those  who 
have  lived  and  wrought  in  the  power  of  Christ  ? 
For  sheer    magnificence    of   personal   dynamic, 


OF  REPUTATION  179 

where,  outside  the  kingdom  of  Christ,  can  you 
parallel  the  spiritual  ascendency  of  Savonarola 
over  the  corrupt  populace  of  Florence?  Once  in 
Wittenberg,  we  stood  in  Luther's  room,  and  tried 
to  realise  what  '  the  wing  stroke  of  that  mighty 
spirit '  had  done  to  bear  the  civilised  world 
forward  into  a  new  day.  His  soul  is  marching 
on,  in  all  that  is  most  vital  in  the  highest  life 
of  the  most  advanced  nations  of  Europe  and 
America.  And  vast,  climatic,  pervasive  —  like 
sunshine — though  the  influence  of  such  a  per- 
sonality be,  what  is  it  to  the  controlling  power 
over  thought  and  life  of  a  man  like  Paul  ? 

We  must  leave  this  declaration  to  win  a  way 
for  itself  in  reflective  minds,  and  pass  at  once  to 
a  point  of  great  importance — the  place  assigned 
to  this  enhanced  personal  influence  in  the  king- 
dom of  God.  Having  nothing,  yet  they  possess 
all  things.  Compelled  to  confess  their  absolute 
helplessness  and  blood-guiltiness,  and  their  need 
of  the  overcoming  grace  of  God,  they  become  in 
turn  mighty  powers  for  God.  Though  the  dynamic 
be  of  God,  it  can  only  become  a  realised  force 
in  human  history,  as  all  experience  witnesses, 
through  and  in  consecrated  men.  They  are 
more  than  mere  channels.      They  are  ganglions, 


i8o         THE  CHRISTIAN   WORTH 

personalities  that  have  been  built  up  by  the 
Holy  Ghost,  for  the  storage  and  transmission 
of  force.  In  that  regard  their  lives  have  a 
distinctive  influence,  a  perennial  value. 

As  Father  John  of  Kronstadt  says,  *  Those  in 
whom  the  Eternal  Sun  of  Righteousness  is  not 
reflected  in  His  perfection,  are  only  noticeable 
when  quite  near  by  a  very  few.  But  if  the  Sun 
of  Righteousness  be  reflected  in  them,  then  they 
are  seen  by  all  from  a  very  great  distance :  they 
are  people  of  all  places  and  of  all  times.' ^ 

And  because  of  this,  God  has  identified  parti- 
cular moments  of  His  kingdom  with  consecrated 
men,  and  not  only  in  so  far  as  they  are  passive 
instruments  for  God  to  work  through,  but  in  the 
entire  range,  and  characteristic  quality  of  their 
consecrated  personalities.  How  grandly  Luther, 
to  recur  to  former  instances,  impressed  himself  on 
the  spiritual  movement  which  was,  under  God, 
originated  by  him.  Paul  preached  the  Gospel  of 
Divine  Grace,  but  his  own  personality  impreg- 
nates his  entire  message,  colouring  the  thought 
and  controlling  the  form.  And  what  we  see  on 
the  mountain  tops,  with  the  great  spirits  who 
have,    in    transmitting    the    message    of    God, 

^  My  Life  in  Christy  p.  63,  trans,  by  GoulaefF. 


OF  REPUTATION  i8i 

unwittingly  imported  their  own  selves,  as  an 
atmosphere  and  a  ruling  influence,  upon  nations 
and  centuries,  we  discern  also  in  the  vales,  among 
the  leaders  and  teachers  of  the  passing  day. 
M'Cheyne,  and  Vinet,  and  Liddon,  and  Spurgeon, 
upheld  one  Christ,  yet  what  a  distinctive  culture 
of  the  human  spirit  was  in  the  preaching  of  each  ! 
The  man,  though  helpless  save  as  an  instrument, 
is  a  large  factor  in  the  result. 

We  saw,  in  an  early  chapter  of  this  volume,  how 
every  strand  of  human  personality  was  drawn  up 
into  Christ,  and  how  the  pulses  of  Christ's  being 
flashed  along  them  all,  into  the  core  of  our  person- 
ality. But  we  have  to  add  to  this  thought,  if  we 
would  realise  how  human  and  divine  are  inter- 
twined in  spiritual  work.  All  blessing  is  won  for 
men  by  the  workers'  intercession.  Not  only  does 
the  power  of  the  living  Christ  feel  along  every 
strand  of  our  characters,  and  so  mount  into  our 
wills,  but  our  personalities,  in  the  abandon  of  in- 
tense desire,  rise  up,  and  are  admitted  as  moving 
elements,  in  the  circle  of  the  divine  thought.  The 
secret  of  intercession  is  priestly  sympathy,  enter- 
ing into  the  needs  of  men,  feeling  with  them, 
feeling  for  them,  putting  ourselves  in  their  place, 
and  drawing  near,  as  men  personally  committed 


i82  THE  CHRISTIAN   WORTH 

to  human  service,  to  commit  God.  The  more  that 
God  works  through  the  man,  the  more  the  man, 
transfigured  and  glistening,  shines  in  his  work. 

And  identified  with  particular  moments  of  the 
kingdom  of  God,  these  men  continue  presences  in 
the  life  of  the  world.  All  the  spiritual  forces  that 
have  ever  entered  into  the  world,  are  living  on,  as 
every  stage  in  the  ascent  of  natural  life  is  repre- 
sented by  creatures  actually  alive  at  this  hour. 
You  send  electricity  along  insulated  wires ;  and 
so  all  the  pulses  of  distinct  and  definite  influences, 
— new  truth,  new  visions  of  duty,  new  horizons  of 
possibility,  new  realisations  of  the  power  of  faith, 
— come  and  keep  coming  along  the  wires,  and 
within  the  insulating  medium  of  personality. 

And  we  feel  concerned  to  add,  with  regard  to 
those  who  have  gone  to  the  majority,  that  their 
connection  with  all  this  is  not  merely  traditional 
and  in  memory.  In  another  sphere  they  are 
going  on,  upon  a  different  plane,  absorbing  the 
advancing  purpose  of  God,  yet  with  the  note  of 
their  personal  achievement  while  on  earth,  domi- 
nant in  their  minds.  Thus,  long  centuries  after, 
Moses  and  Elias  appeared  as  types  of  law  and 
prophecy  on  the  Transfiguration  Mount.  Human 
progress,  though   we   constantly  forget  it,  is   in 


OF  REPUTATION  183 

two  lines,  one  within  the  veil,  one  on  this 
earth. 

When  the  two  streams  shall  meet,  we  shall  not 
presume  to  fix.  Their  union  in  the  presence  of 
Christ,  will  be  the  occasion  of  the  full  outblossom- 
ing  of  holy  personality,  in  millionfold  diversity  of 
gift,  but  in  unity  of  filial  splendour.  '  Then  shall 
the  righteous  shine  forth  as  the  sun,'  and  what 
creation  waited  for  shall  be  realised.  All,  besides, 
having  been  swept  to  the  ruin  of  the  inherently 
evanescent,  there  shall  stand  forth,  the  one 
eternal  result  of  the  dispensation  of  time,  the 
manifestation  of  the  sons  of  God. 

Wherever  there  is  a  gleam  of  personal  good,  that 
is  the  eternal  thing.  Throw  yourself  on  that,  fan 
the  flickering  into  a  flame.  Wherever  there  is  a 
touch  of  graciousness,  seek  that  it  may  grow  from 
less  to  more.  Wherever  there  is  good  report,  of 
man  or  thing,  do  not  criticise  or  disparage  ;  study 
to  make  them  more  worthy  of  their  praise.  For 
up  the  ladder  of  personal  good,  we  scale  the 
summits  of  time. 

Thus  have  we  sketched  the  place  of  personality 
in  the  kingdom  of  God.  And  we  have  done  this, 
although  it  carried  us  beyond  the  social  sphere, 
to   show   how   every   pulse   of  influence   in   the 


i84         THE  CHRISTIAN  WORTH 

kingdom   of   Christ,  throbs  from  a   consecrated 
character  with  a  divine  energy. 

What  we  have  learned  of  this  Christian  person- 
ality— the  sources  of  its  strength,  the  hidden 
fountain  of  its  influence — prompt  us  in  closing 
to  utter  those  warning  words.  Many  men  would 
like  to  exploit  the  energies  of  Christianity,  for 
behoof  of  their  own  theories.  But  they  remind  us 
much  of  the  sons  of  Sceva,  of  whom  we  read  in 
the  Acts  (xviii.  14).  They  attempted  to  cast  out 
evil  spirits  by  calling  over  them  the  name  of  Jesus. 
And  at  sound  of  that  great  name  the  spirits  made 
as  if  to  go.  But  they  bethought  them  to  ask 
whether  these  had  the  mind  of  Christ.  '  Jesus  I 
know,'  so  says  this  strange  voice  from  the  unseen, 
*  and  have  learned  that  it  is  no  use  to  resist  Him. 
Our  master  Satan  crucified  Him,  with  the  result 
that  his  kingdom  was  broken.  Paul  I  understand. 
All  our  resistance  of  him  has  only  heightened  his 
influence.  But  have  these  people  the  Christ's 
spirit  or  the  Pauline  surrender?  Who  are  ye? 
Ah,  mere  pretenders.'  Let  Luke  tell  the  sequel 
— 'And  the  man  in  whom  the  evil  spirit  was, 
leaped  on  them  and  overcame  them,  and  prevailed 
against  them,  so  that  they  fled  out  of  that  house 
naked  and  wounded.' 


OF  REPUTATION  185 

,  Multitudes  are  aspiring  to  charm  with  the 
wand  of  Christianity.  But  only  men  saved  by 
grace,  begotten  anew,  and  filled  with  the  spirit  of 
Christ,  men  who  have  been  yielded  up  to  God,  and 
to  whom  His  will  is  paramount,  can  either  stand 
the  strain  of  trial  or  exert  the  power  that  over- 
comes. Shows  will  not  suffice.  Nothing  but  the 
spirit  and  power  of  Christ,  born  again  in  redeemed 
human  souls,  can  outwit  evil,  overcome  every  art  of 
wrong,  create  in  falsehood  and  deceit  a  paralysing 
sense  of  impotence,  and  lead  captivity  captive. 

What  we  need,  then,  above  everything,  even  for 
a  transfigured  society,  is  a  new  day  of  the  con- 
verting power  of  God  ;  that  multitudes  should  be 
born  again ;  that  all  renewed  and  surrendered 
souls  should  enter  into  a  fuller  realisation  of 
what  is  possible  through  the  indwelling  Spirit, 
of  what  strength  and  privilege  have  been  laid  up 
for  them  in  Jesus  Christ.  Men  irk  this  upward 
path.  There  is  a  strong  thirst  for  the  broad  and 
easy  ways.  But  if  there  were  no  other  and  higher 
reasons,  the  terrible  defeats  which  defective  types 
of  Christianity  have  suffered,  in  the  onward  pro- 
gress of  the  kingdom,  make  it  imperative,  that 
we  should  ground  our  life  and  its  activities  in 
that  which  is  imperishable,  because  divine. 


CHAPTER    VIII 

THE  WORLD-OUTLOOK   OF   THE   CHRISTIAN 
PERSONALITY 

We  now  come  upon  a  remarkable  incidental 
confirmation,  of  that  limitless  horizon  of  the 
Christian  personality,  which  we  have  given  in 
these  chapters.  The  Christians  were  a  very 
feeble  folk,  the  most  hated  sect  of  a  despised 
race.  They  lived  on  sufferance,  herded  in  ob- 
scurity, and  met  for  worship,  under  covert  of 
night,  in  unfrequented  spots.  And  yet  they  do 
not  turn  in  upon  themselves,  cultivating  a 
cloistered  virtue,  boasting  an  esoteric  wisdom. 
They  assume  that  they  have  the  clue  to  all 
existence,  the  key  to  all  knowledge.  And  so 
execrated,  despised,  facing  possible  imprison- 
ment and  death,  they  took  up  a  singularly 
commanding  and  authoritative  tone,  toward  the 
wisdom,  and  glory,  and  power,  of  that  ancient 
civilisation.  All  the  corruption,  and  confusion, 
and  reasonless  excess  then  prevalent,  they  held 

186 


THE  WORLD-OUTLOOK  187 

were  the  outcome  of  that  evil  from  which  they 
themselves  had  been  delivered  ;  while  every 
scrap  of  real  good,  every  true  thought,  or  right 
principle,  or  instance  of  public  spirit,  or  even 
suggestion  in  their  heathen  dreams,  were  gleams 
of  that  primitive  Word — the  Light  that  lighteth 
every  man  that  cometh  into  the  world. 

Paul's  words  spoken  on  Mars'  Hill,  amid  the 
summit  splendours  of  ancient  civilisation,  '  Whom 
ye  ignorantly  worship,  Him  we  declare  unto  you,' 
express  the  reigning  spirit  of  Christian  apology 
while  heathenism  still  survived.  As  one  reads 
Justin  Martyr,  and  Clement,  and  Origen,  one  feels 
how  fully  they  rose  to  the  height  of  Paul's 
conception,  and  wherever  there  was  any  gleam 
of  good,  gave  it  recognition,  and  a  place  for  all 
that  it  was  worth,  in  the  ethics  of  Christian 
conduct.  And  so,  while  they  were  critics,  censors, 
or  rather  light-bearers,  discovering  to  view  the 
abominations  of  that  old  world,  they  were  not 
aliens.  They  would  not  be  compromised,  and 
yet-they  would  not  be  separated  from  the  people. 
The  first  thrill  which  told  them,  like  an  earth- 
quake-throb in  the  night,  that  a  new  force  had 
entered  the  world,  came  from  the  Christian  love 
welling  up  in  their  hearts  to  each  other,  and  to 


i88       THE  WORLD-OUTLOOK  OF 

all  men,  their  purity,  their  impulse  to  serve. 
And  if  in  anything  they  erred,  some  of  them 
went  even  to  excess,  in  pride  of  all  that  was 
noble  in  that  old  civilisation,  and  in  tracing  it 
to  a  revealed  source. 

We  dwell  upon  this  tendency  of  early  centuries, 
because  it  discovers  to  us  the  working  of  a  genuine 
Christian  spirit,  broad  and  sympathetic  in  world- 
view,  through  very  loyalty  to  the  full  sum  of 
revelation, — a  spirit  which,  for  a  cause  which 
we  shall  presently  mention,  became  obscured  in 
later  centuries.  Indeed,  if  we  might  presume 
to  give  advice,  our  present-day  thinkers,  who 
conceive  of  Christianity  as  a  living  spirit  having 
affinities  with  all  truth,  might  with  great  advan- 
tage turn  their  attention  to  those  early  teachers, 
for  by  analogy  they  may  suggest  to  us  the 
paths  by  which  we  are  to  cope  with  many 
difficulties  of  our  own  time.  There  are  two 
passages  which  reveal  the  two  sides  of  their 
spirit,  with  great  force — both  to  be  found  in  the 
brief  first  apology  of  Justin  Martyr.  First,  as 
to  that  new  selfless  sympathy  that  made  them 
citizens  of  the  world.  He  is  addressing  the 
Emperor  Antoninus  Pius,  '  We  who  valued  above 
all  things  the  acquisition  of  wealth  and  possession, 


THE  CHRISTIAN   PERSONALITY    189 

now  bring  what  we  have  into  a  common  stock 
and  communicate  to  every  one  in  need  ;  we  who 
hated  and  destroyed  one  another,  and  on  account 
of  their  different  manners  would  not  live  with 
men  of  a  different  tribe,  now  since  the  coming  of 
Christ  live  familiarly  with  them,  and  pray  for  our 
enemies,  and  endeavour  to  persuade  those  who 
hate  us  unjustly  to  live  conformably  to  the  good 
precepts  of  Christ,  to  the  end  that  they  may 
become  partakers  with  us  of  the  same  joyful 
hope  of  a  reward  from  God,  the  ruler  of  all' 
(chap.  xiv.). 

In  reading  the  paragraph  which  is  to  follow, 
from  the  twentieth  chapter  of  the  same  work, 
one  must  remember  the  superb  loyalty  to  revela- 
tion of  these  apologists,  which  carried  them  past 
all  thought  of  compromise.  We  are  familiar 
enough  with  the  far-fetched  pursuit  of  analogies, 
having  for  end  the  reduction  of  the  supernatural 
to  the  level  of  the  natural.  But  sure  of  his  own 
ground  in  the  supernatural,  Justin  is  feeling,  in 
a  true  generosity  of  heart,  for  every  correspond- 
ence with  divine  truth,  in  the  deeper  reasonings 
of  Greek  and  Roman  thinkers,  that  he  might 
draw  them  up  to  the  full  truth  on  the  higher 
platform  of  faith.     Still  speaking  to  the  emperor 


I90       THE  WORLD-OUTLOOK  OF 

on  behalf  of  the  Christians,  he  says,  '  If,  therefore, 
on  some  points  we  teach  the  same  things  as  the 
poets  and  philosophers  whom  you  honour,  and 
on  other  points  are  fuller  and  more  divine  in  our 
teachings,  and  if  we  alone  afford  proof  of  what 
we  assert,  why  are  we  unjustly  hated  more  than 
all  others  ?  For  while  we  say  that  all  things  have 
been  produced  and  arranged  into  a  world  by  God, 
we  shall  seem  to  utter  the  doctrine  of  Plato  ;  and 
while  we  say  that  there  will  be  a  burning  up  of 
all,  we  shall  seem  to  utter  the  doctrine  of  the 
Stoics ;  and  while  we  affirm  that  the  souls  of 
the  wicked,  being  endowed  with  sensation  after 
death,  are  punished,  and  that  those  of  the  good, 
being  delivered  from  punishment,  spend  a  blessed 
existence,  we  shall  seem  to  say  the  same  things 
as  the  poets  and  philosophers.'  And  then  from 
these  discovered  resemblances  he  strives,  by 
pointing  out  the  incongruous  bestial  elements 
in  their  creed,  to  detach  them  from  heathenism 
and  draw  them  on  to  the  full  truth  in  Christ. 

True  in  itself,  in  harmony  with  the  command- 
ing outlook  of  the  apostle  Paul,  this  line,  pursued 
with  varying  success  and  degrees  of  sympathetic 
insight,  was  essential  in  the  wide-spreading  wreck 
of  that  old  world,  magnetically  to  attract  all  sorts 


THE  CHRISTIAN  PERSONALITY    191 

and  conditions  of  men.     There  must  have  been 
multitudes  of  homeless,  unattached   thinkers,  in 
the  break-up  of  old  philosophies  and   religions, 
wandering  like  the  dove  over  the  waste  of  waters. 
And  it  is  to  the  everlasting  credit  of  those  early 
Christians,  that  these  were  substantially  won  to 
the  Christian  standpoint.      Not  one  pagan  cult, 
not  one  pagan  school,  was  carried  forward  in  an 
active   and    aggressive    condition    into   the    new 
world.     Now  that  was  done  man  by  man,  and  it 
argues  a  broad,   tender,  just,  assimilative  spirit, 
which,  would  God,  we  possessed  in  the  clash  and 
conflict   of  present    opinion.      To    use    a    great 
parable  of  our  Lord,  when  the  Church  grew  to 
be  a  great  tree,  nothing  of  the  world's  civilisa- 
tion lay  without.     All  the  birds  of  the  air  found 
lodgment  in  the  branches  thereof. 

But  from  another  point  of  view,  and  with  help 
of  a  further  great  parable  of  Christ,  we  may  show 
in  brief  compass,  the  assimilative  power  of  the 
renewed  personality,  working  in  a  consecrated 
society.  There  is  no  stranger  passage  in  the 
Gospels  than  the  parable  of  the  unjust  steward. 
We  have  often  puzzled  over  its  presence  in  the 
Gospel  story.  That  Christ  should  praise  shrewd- 
ness associated  with  dishonesty,  seemed  to  detract 


192       THE  WORLD-OUTLOOK  OF 

from  that  wide  gulf,  which  separated  the  stainless 
purity  of  Christ  from  the  least  shadow  of  moral 
compromise.  And  the  R.V.  reads,  *  His  lord 
commended  the  unrighteous  steward,  because  he 
had  done  wisely ' — making  the  commendation  the 
judgment  of  the  rich  man,  his  master,  not  of 
Christ.  Still  the  difficulty  is  not  removed,  for 
Christ  homologates  the  rich  master's  judgment, 
and  from  it  points  lessons  to  His  disciples. 

In  the  field  of  social  ethics,  we  begin  to  see  the 
profound  use  of  such  an  incident  as  this.  Even 
more  impressive  in  immediate  effect  upon  the 
heathen,  than  the  loyalty  of  the  Christians  to  super- 
natural revelation,  were  their  burning  purity  and 
their  unswerving  rectitude.  Corruption  came  all 
too  soon,  but  there  can  be  no  dispute  that  the  pro- 
found moral  impression  produced  on  heathenism 
by  the  followers  of  Christ,  was  the  main  lever  in 
displacing  the  old  beliefs,  and  clearing  the  ground 
for  Christianity.  Out  of  the  purlieus  of  that  pagan 
world,  from  slave  gangs,  from  among  the  minions 
of  luxurious  palaces,  as  well  as  from  courts  and 
council-chambers  and  camps,  and  from  schools  of 
rhetoric  and  philosophy,  came  men  with  a  new 
hunger  in  their  hearts,  but  practised  and  developed 
to  strength,  all  of  them  in  heathen  atmospheres, 


THE  CHRISTIAN  PERSONALITY    193 

and  on  heathen  levels  of  conduct,  many  of  them 
in  what  was  unjust  or  wrong. 

Receiving  them  into  a  new  life,  bringing  them 
into  fellowship  with  Father  and  Son  by  the 
Spirit,  were  the  Christians  simply  to  ignore  the 
entire  old  life,  and  thrust  it  away  from  their  con- 
cern ?  To  act  thus  would  have  been  a  wrong  to 
the  recipients,  and  an  unspeakable  blunder  for  the 
Church.  Christ — or  the  rich  master,  if  you  will 
— discriminated  between  the  sin  of  the  steward, 
and  the  shrewdness  which  he  displayed  in  con- 
nection with  it.  And  so  they  were  to  put  them- 
selves in  the  place  of  these  men  cleansed  in  the 
laver  of  regeneration.  Were  there  no  robust 
elements  of  character  bred  in  heathen  atmo- 
spheres, no  faculties  disciplined  in  the  public 
service,  no  natural  or  acquired  influence,  no 
profound  e'udition,  no  skill  in  rhetoric,  which, 
dissociated  from  their  pagan  surroundings, 
purged  of  their  pagan  spirit,  and  consecrated 
to  Christ,  might  not  be  used  with  immense  ad- 
vantage to  the  convert  and  to  the  Church  ?  The 
whole  world  was  God's  world,  all  men  were  His 
subjects,  and  though  they  had  gone  miserably 
astray,  yet  as  there  was  a  divine  image  in  man, 
so  must  there  be  the  blossoming  of  some  divine 
N 


194       THE  WORLD-OUTLOOK  OF 

ideas  in  their  heathen  society.  And  wherever 
there  was  a  gleam  of  good,  anything  that  com- 
mended itself  as  virtuous,  or  making  anyhow  for 
the  higher  life  of  man,  they  were — not  to  adopt 
it  necessarily,  at  once  or  in  the  whole,  but  to 
bring  all  the  forces  of  the  Christian  personality 
to  bear  on  its  consideration — to  think  on  these 
things. 

*  If  there  be  any  virtue,' — they  were  not  to  rest 
content  with  what  obviously  appeared,  but  to 
make  search  ;  and,  if  anywhere,  down  in  the  very 
stews  of  heathen  pollution,  they  were  to  discover 
what  had  one  spark  of  remanent  human  excel- 
lence—  no  matter  how  fragmentary,  no  matter 
how  elusive  or  on  how  low  a  level,  they  were 
to  fan  it  into  a  flame.  Because  God  had  judged 
human  nature  as  dead  in  trespasses  and  sins ; 
because  He  had  assumed  it  incapable  of  securing 
its  own  emancipation,  and  had  gone  to  another, 
a  divine  source,  for  redemption,  that  was  no 
reason  why  the  new  nature,  rooted  in  God,  should 
not  attach  to  itself,  and  use  for  social  ends,  every 
fragment  of  faculty  and  aptitude,  and  moral 
habit,  anywhere  existent.  Included  within  the 
redemptive  plan,  was  the  recovery  of  the  whole 
man  to  the  service  of  Christ. 


THE  CHRISTIAN   PERSONALITY     195 

Unfortunately,  the  hierarchical  tendencies  of 
the  Roman  Church,  waxing  ever  stronger,  fettered, 
at  least  in  practical  action  and  expression,  the 
freer  and  more  spiritual  conceptions  of  early 
Christianity.  Instead  of  a  living  leaven,  working 
freely  through  redeemed  men,  drawing  some  into 
spiritual  unity,  and  many  more  in  ever-widening 
circles,  into  all  degrees  of  sympathy  and  in- 
tellectual affinity,  there  rose  up,  stark  and 
unbending,  the  great  objective  institution  of 
the  Church,  spiritual,  but  with  a  very  aggressive 
material  arm,  scornful  of  subtle  affinities,  demand- 
ing allegiance,  and  often  overriding  conviction. 
Instead  of  the  true,  there  came  a  false  assimila- 
tion. Heathen  customs,  from  a  spirit  of  policy, 
were  with  slight  changes  incorporated  into  the 
ecclesiastical  system,  rather  to  the  paganising  of 
Christianity  than  the  Christianising  of  paganism. 
And  broad  and  many-sided  though  the  Roman 
Church  was,  as  she  became  a  tradition  and  an 
empire,  she  lost  that  subtle  touch  of  the  human 
heart,  which  marked  the  earlier  centuries,  growing 
to  be  a  body  rather  than  a  soul,  a  cult  rather  than 
a  creation,  immersed  in  struggles  for  her  material 
interests,  and,  so  far  from  harmonising  all  life 
and   thought,   provoking    revolts   of  the   human 


ig6       THE   WORLD-OUTLOOK   OF 

conscience   and   intellect,  which  surely  wrought 
to  a  European  catastrophe. 

So  far,  however,  as  living  Christianity  was  at 
work  in  her  frame, — and  more  at  the  circumference 
than  at  the  centre, — she  displayed,  through  her 
consecrated  sons,  the  old  assimilative  power 
over  the  rude  barbarians,  who  came  pouring  in 
successive  deluges  over  the  broken  ramparts  of 
the  empire,  and  won  dominions  partial  and 
temporary  amid  the  dismal  welter  of  incessant 
conflict,  which  preceded  the  constitution  of  Modern 
Europe.  In  a  mere  sketch  like  the  present,  how- 
ever, we  may  pass  on  at  once  to  a  region  better 
known  to  us,  or  at  least  nearer  our  own  time. 
The  catastrophe  of  the  Reformation — the  judg- 
ment of  history  upon  the  defects  and  errors 
of  the  Roman  Church — set  free  many  forces  of 
immense  validity  to  work  in  the  Western  nations. 
The  new  religious  consciousness  of  acceptance 
and  union  with  God — new  in  immediacy,  clearness 
of  vision,  and  freedom  from  spiritual  bondage — 
was  creative  of  a  type  of  spiritual  character  of  a 
very  forceful  description.  In  coming  at  once, 
without  intervention  of  priest  or  sacrament,  into 
union  with  God,  the  Christian  personality  in  a 
sense  reached  its  majority.     There  was  a  clean- 


THE  CHRISTIAN   PERSONALITY     197 

cutting  decision  in  its  judgments,  as  well  as  a  force 
and  independence  and  self-reliance  of  character 
— really  the  answer  of  a  good  conscience  toward 
God — which  gave  it  tenfold  force  in  every  social 
sphere.  A  blessed  emancipation  ensued,  right 
round  a  wide  circle  of  human  interests. 

Even  the  Reformed  Churches,  however,  did  not 
recover  all  at  once  the  buoyancy  and  breadth 
of  view  of  the  early  Church.  There  cannot  be 
deflection  from  a  right  course,  maintained  through 
centuries,  without  errors  and  defects  clinging  to 
the  reaction  and  oppositions  which  they  provoke. 
They  did  not  clearly  and  uniformly  assume,  that 
through  this  union  with  God  in  Christ  they  had 
reached  back  to  the  bed-rock  of  being,  had  risen 
to  the  master  and  all-inclusive  view  of  Life.  And 
so  they  did  not  go  on  the  assumption,  that  they 
could  come  into  a  healthful  and  commanding  re- 
lation, to  all  true  thought  and  every  real  interest 
of  man.  In  the  practical  spheres  of  individual 
conduct  and  civil  society,  the  Christian  personality 
exerted  an  immense  influence.  The  worth  of 
man  was  appreciated,  the  consciousness  of  public 
duty  was  deepened  where  not  created,  the  sacred- 
ness  of  human  rights  was  asserted — first  a  man's 
right  of  conscience  in  relation  to  God,  and  then 


198       THE  WORLD-OUTLOOK   OF 

his  civil  rights,  as  having  function  and  share  in 
the  commonwealth.  Everything  which  made  for 
his  cultivation  as  an  intellectual  and  moral  being, 
— education,  public  worship,  and  so  forth — was  a 
public  care.  Puritanism  prematurely,  and  on  far 
too  narrow  a  basis,  tried  to  build  up  a  common- 
wealth rooted  in  a  religious  view  of  existence  ;  and 
if  it  failed,  and  failed  disastrously,  as  a  national 
polity,  provoking  a  reaction  from  which  we  suffer 
still,  yet  it  has  left,  as  a  powerful  leaven,  many  of 
the  best  elements  in  our  national  life.  With  the 
exception  of  a  tendency  which  came  from  a 
quarter  which  we  shall  presently  describe,  the 
movements  of  liberalism,  which  have  extended 
popular  liberties  and  built  up  the  free  democratic 
state,  owe  well-nigh  everything  to  the  forces  of 
conscience  and  intellectual  conviction,  deriving  in 
the  last  resort  from  the  Protestant  spirit. 

Where  the  defect  lay — and  we  are  only  coming 
to  see  how  serious  it  was — was  in  a  different 
direction.  Perhaps  constituted  as  we  are,  this 
deviation,  which  we  are  about  to  refer  to,  rather 
than  describe,  was  a  necessary  stage  in  human 
experience.  Escaped  from  the  wholly  unwarrant- 
able tyranny  exercised  over  them  by  the  Roman 
Church,  the  forces  of  the  human  intellect  rejoiced 


THE   CHRISTIAN   PERSONALITY     199 

in  a  new-found  liberty.  Influenced  profoundly 
by  the  Reformation,  but  working  independently, 
thinker  after  thinker  wrought  out  a  theory  of 
existence,  tried  to  explain  man  and  man's  world 
to  reason,  from  every  possible  standpoint,  down 
to  the  crudest  materialism.  Much  of  the  best 
intellect  of  these  centuries  went  into  those 
lines  of  study.  As  modern  literatures  grew,  they 
absorbed  in  no  small  measures  these  fresh  currents 
of  speculation.  Science,  too,  which  began  under 
Lord  Bacon  and  Newton  in  a  truly  religious  spirit, 
attracted  by  those  pantheistic  and  materialistic 
theories  which  gave  the  primacy  to  physical  law, 
in  a  growing  number  of  its  representatives,  went 
steadily  against  a  spiritual  view  of  existence. 

Meantime,  instead  of  standing  on  the  realities 
of  the  spiritual  life  as  verified  by  experience,  and 
striving  to  undergird  the  whole  realm  of  thought 
and  life  with  a  spiritual  view  of  existence,  the 
leaders  of  the  churches  gave  themselves  up  to 
internal  disputes  about  dogmatic  definitions  of 
truth,  with  the  result  that  the  Church  divided, 
and  subdivided,  losing  far  more  in  intellectual 
prestige  than  in  practical  influence.  In  all  this 
was  a  leaven  of  the  Romish  idea,  of  sacred 
and    secular.       And    when    the    rationalistic   and 


200      THE  WORLD-OUTLOOK  OF 

material  views  of  life  grew  into  power,  they 
took  advantage  of  that  tendency  in  the  churches 
to  confine  themselves  within  their  own  immediate 
spheres,  and  claimed  for  philosophy,  based  on 
selfish  principles,  the  world  of  commerce,  and 
industry  and  public  life  generally.  Then  sprang 
up  the  practical  tendency,  in  such  strange  con- 
trast to  the  practice  of  Puritan  times,  to  rule 
all  reference  to  God  and  the  principles  of 
Christianity,  out  of  journalism  and  public  dis- 
cussion generally.  And  so  the  foes  of  Chris- 
tianity proved  to  be  born  of  her  own  household, 
— the  offspring  of  tendencies,  which  owed  their 
being  to  the  lead  given,  and  the  liberties 
secured,  by  the  Reformation.  Of  this  progress 
— which  was  no  progress,  but  really  a  long  re- 
action from  a  still  longer  period  of  repression, — 
the  crowning  step  was  to  deny  all  real  know- 
ledge of  the  Absolute  and  the  Infinite,  and  to 
relegate  the  supernatural  to  the  realm  of  illusion. 
In  these  contentions  of  agnosticism,  the  rational- 
istic spirit  went  to  the  furthest  limit,  only  to  find 
its  own  impotence. 

The  reality  of  the  spiritual,  the  quality  of 
spiritual  life  as  a  something  distinct  in  human 
experience,  the  quite  unparalleled  predominance 


THE   CHRISTIAN   PERSONALITY    201 

of  spiritual  forces  in  the  most  advanced  nations, 
were  facts  indubitable.  All  that  agnosticism 
had  disproved,  was  its  own  processes.  Leaving 
the  really  moral  and  spiritual  out  of  the  problem 
to  be  solved,  of  course  it  could  find  no  place  for 
them  in  the  answer. 

The  spiritual,  then,  is  here  and  to  stay.  The 
exhaustiveness  of  the  attack  has  served  the  end 
of  making  any  renewal  impossible.  Onsets  there 
will  be,  but  never  from  precisely  the  same  point. 
Strange  eclipses  do  pass  over  the  human  spirit. 
But  the  spiritual  has  already  so  vindicated  her 
possession  of  a  peculiar  power,  and  seems  destined 
so  to  heighten  that  proof  through  succeeding 
time,  that  the  assertion  and  demonstration  of 
her  illusory  character,  so  far  from  recovering 
hold,  will  fall  into  ever-deeper  disparagement, 
becoming  classed  at  last  among  the  monstrosities 
of  human  opinion. 

For,  while  this  demonstration  has  been  going 
forward,  and  during  a  long  period  anterior,  the 
Church  has  been  recovering  her  hold  on  the 
true  fountains  of  her  strength.  In  revivals  of 
religion,  in  bold  assertions  of  the  Christian  con- 
science, in  missionary  enterprise,  in  aggressive 
home  efforts,  evangelical  Christians  of  every  name 


202       THE  WORLD-OUTLOOK  OF 

have  been  making  less  of  divisive  testinnonies, 
and  have  been  gathering  round  the  great  facts 
of  the  new  life  in  God.  The  divine  reality  of 
religion  has  been  more  deeply  impressed  on  the 
common  Christian  consciousness,  by  a  firmer  and 
clearer  grasp  of  the  elements  of  a  redeemed 
experience,  and  by  superb  individual  demonstra- 
tions of  their  power.  We  have  ceased  the  strife 
of  defence,  because  of  the  conviction  that  we 
have,  in  the  individual  soul  and  in  the  kingdom 
of  God,  a  divine  power,  self-witnessing,  like  all 
reality,  obtrusive  as  light.  Even  attacks  are 
becoming  sickly  and  faint. 

And  as  this  redeemed  consciousness  is  growing 
in  believing  men,  we  are  dropping  the  onesided 
views  of  an  imperfect  past.  The  deathly  silence 
in  Parliament,  and  journalism,  and  literature,  is 
beginning  to  yield.  Men  are  confessing  loyalty  to 
God,  seeking  avowedly  to  be  guided  by  the  mind 
of  Christ.  There  is  a  revolt  against  the  selfish 
theories  of  business  and  public  life.  Christians 
are  coming  to  see,  that  they  can  only  win 
dominion,  by  asserting  the  supremacy  of  Christ 
in  every  sphere. 

As  yet  this  is  only  a  feeling — a  blind  aspira- 
tion, working  like  a  ferment  in  some  brains,  to 


THE  CHRISTIAN   PERSONALITY    203 

contrary  issues.  We  have  not  yet  got  to  the 
standpoint  of  Justin  Martyr,  and  Clement,  and 
Origen,  that  there  is  a  theological,  or  rather  let 
us  say  biblical,  foundation  for  this.  In  Christ 
we  touch  the  truth  underlying  all  true  things.  In 
Christ  we  have  the  clue  to  the  meaning  and  end 
of  all  realms  of  existence,  in  the  discovery,  by 
the  Creator  and  Immanent  Life  Himself,  of  His 
purpose  and  end.  That  is  the  full  Christian 
position,  and  by  the  maintenance  of  that  our 
religion  stands  and  falls. 

Standing  on  this  high  platform,  assuming  the 
unity  of  truth.  Christian  men  have  to  come  out 
in  a  trustful  spirit  to  all  truth.  God  is  in  His 
world,  Christ  is  on  the  throne.  Man  was  made 
for  God,  and  has  an  inextinguishable  witness  in 
his  being's  deeps.  We  have  got  to  interpret 
the  questionings,  suggestions,  aspirations,  dreams, 
even  seeming  madness,  of  the  human  spirit ;  and 
wherever  we  find  one  gleam  of  good,  one  true 
conviction,  one  fragment  of  honest  thought,  we 
are  to  bring  that  into  relation  to  Christ's  central 
truth,  and  the  possessors  into  understanding  of 
Him,  never  doubting  that  in  Christ  will  be  found 
the  synthesis  of  all  truth,  the  desire  of  all  nations. 

Already   the  living  Christian   men   of  all  the 


204      THE  WORLD-OUTLOOK  OF 

churches,  secure  of  the  heavenly  realities  of 
the  life  in  God  from  experience,  are  in  this 
trustful  attitude,  'standing  four-square  to  every 
wind  that  blows.'  Their  mood  in  many  ways 
has  changed.  To  take  one  point,  look  at  the 
cessation  among  Christian  teachers  of  the  partisan 
attitude,  and  the  growth  of  the  scientific  spirit. 
Free  from  fear  of  consequences,  thinkers  in 
the  Protestant  churches  are  seeking,  above  all, 
the  truth.  In  their  new  zeal,  not  a  few,  in  our 
more  conservative  judgment,  are  being  carried 
to  extremes,  being  anxious  to  get  into  touch 
with  the  highest  thoughts  of  truth-loving  men. 
But  the  tendency  is  a  noble  one :  we  desire  to 
conquer  by  truth,  not  by  force,  to  win  men 
from  their  own  standpoints,  to  see  the  subtlest 
affinities  with  all  their  finest  thoughts,  the 
answers  to  their  deepest  needs,  in  Christ. 

Already  this  tendency  has  travelled  far. 
Among  the  most  thorough  and  fairest  expon- 
ents of  the  heathen  religions  have  been  mission- 
aries, whose  life-task  it  is  to  draw  their  followers 
to  the  standard  of  Christ.  There  is  the  most 
unfeigned  desire,  to  understand  and  to  sym- 
pathetically interpret,  every  form  and  phase  of 
social  theory  current  in  all  latitudes  of  thought. 


THE  CHRISTIAN   PERSONALITY    205 

While  Christians  are  virtually  alone  in  systematic 
hand-to-hand  grappling  with  the  sins  and  miseries 
of  our  sunken  masses,  yet  they  have  shown 
the  utmost  patience  and  tolerance  of  spirit  in 
weighing  all  helpful  suggestions,  from  whatever 
quarter  they  come.  With  ever-mounting  con- 
fidence, men  of  mark  are  putting  the  Christian 
world-view  over  against  all  partial  or  opposed 
views. 

And  this  fresh  ascendency  of  the  Christian 
conception  of  existence,  taken  as  a  whole,  is 
affecting  the  judgments  of  men  on  all  subjects : 
the  relations  of  masters  and  servants,  healthful 
intellectual  and  moral  conditions  for  the  masses, 
strifes  of  capital  and  labour,  the  obligations  of 
wealth,  and  so  forth.  Consideration  of  the  higher 
interests  of  humanity,  and  of  the  precious  heri- 
tages of  our  Christian  civilisation,  has  created  a 
new  horror  of  war,  and  has  moved  the  Czar  of 
Russia  to  invite  conference  with  the  powers  in 
the  interests  of  peace. 

All  these  things  are  matters  of  common  ob- 
servation, but  the  importance  attaching  to  their 
cursory  mention  in  this  place,  arises  from  the 
consideration,  to  which  our  whole  discussion 
gives    meaning   and    emphasis,   that   in    this  we 


2o6  THE  WORLD-OUTLOOK 

have  no  passing  enthusiasm,  but  a  movement 
from  the  heart  of  Christianity,  in  fullest  keeping 
with  its  essential  spirit  and  recognising  its  all- 
commanding  claims.  And  this  movement,  long 
arrested  by  the  sacerdotal  spirit,  is  coming  into 
line,  on  its  broader  plane,  and  with  its  more  de- 
veloped consciousness  at  once  of  the  spiritual  and 
of  all  other  spheres,  with  what  was  best  in  the 
thought  of  early  centuries  ;  a  movement  destined 
to  win  for  Christ  a  complete  supremacy  over 
the  thought  and  life  of  the  world. 


CHAPTER    IX 

THE  AFFINITY  OF  THE  CHRISTIAN   PERSONALITY 
WITH  HUMAN  IDEALS 

In  a  rapid  survey,  we  have  seen  how  the  Christian 
spirit  comes  into  touch  with  every  fragment  of 
good,  whether  in  idea,  or  in  character,  or  in  social 
arrangements,  throughout  the  world  ;  gives  that 
a  larger  interpretation,  in  view  of  the  new  order 
of  things  it  has  brought  to  light ;  and  works  the 
whole  into  a  unity  of  intellectual  and  spiritual 
view  fitted  to  animate  the  thought  and  guide  the 
organised  life  of  the  race.  Though  inseparable 
from  this  line  of  remark,  there  is  another  aspect 
of  the  influence  ofthe  Christian  personality  worthy 
of  special  note.  We  refer  to  those  great  move- 
ments of  many  kinds,  such  as  crusades,  revivals 
of  learning,  maritime  exploration,  political  and 
social  reform,  which  have  drawn  the  energies 
of  whole  peoples,  and  sometimes  of  families 
of  peoples,  into  intense  efforts  for  their  realisa- 
tion, and  which  have  given  distinctive  character 

207 


208    THE   CHRISTIAN   PERSONALITY 

and  influence  to  particular  periods  of  human 
history. 

In  such  movements  we  have,  it  is  true,  for  the 
periods  during  which  they  developed,  the  crown- 
ing exhibitions  of  human  strength  and  excellence. 
And  consequently  the  ground  may  seem  to  be 
covered  by  what  has  been  already  advanced. 
These  movements,  however,  are  not  moral  and 
intellectual  alone.  They  have  a  material  founda- 
tion. Circumstances  arise  in  the  life  of  the  world 
— through  the  strife  for  material  necessities,  the 
conflict  of  nationalities,  the  growth  of  knowledge, 
or  the  development  of  special  social  conditions  or 
such-like  complex  influences — which  press  upon 
peoples,  fresh  action  in  particular  directions. 
Often  intermingled  with  those,  yea,  finding  their 
occasions  in  such  vast  sets  of  consenting  circum- 
stances, intellectual  principles  or  religious  con- 
victions act  like  ferments,  bringing  all  these 
circumstances  into  an  active  condition,  and  rous- 
ing the  great  masses  of  a  nation  for  some  popular 
ideal,  which  for  the  time  being  is  the  one  object 
of  their  passionate  devotion. 

Personal  elements — ethical  influences — enter 
into  those  movements,  but  numerous  causes,  in- 
terests, and  ambitions  besides  are  wrought  into 


AND   HUMAN   IDEALS  209 

the  social  whole— which  becomes  the  '  praise  '  or 
boast  of  an  entire  generation.    The  ages  have  cul- 
minated in  those  movements,  and  humanity  has 
advanced   through    them.      From    one   point   of 
view,  they  may  be  regarded  as  tidal  movements 
of  the  human  spirit,  lifting  the  race  over  shoals 
and  sandbanks  into  new  reaches  of  thought  and 
action.     In  another  and  equally  important  regard, 
they   are    the    product    of    material,    industrial, 
social,  and    such-like   conditions,  which  in  slow 
secular  change  have  combined  to  give  the  human 
spirit  an  hour  of  opportunity.     And  beyond  and 
above  even  these,  there  are  other  elements  enter- 
ing  into  those  vast  streams  of  tendency  which 
can  best  be  explained  as  the  results  of  the  actions 
of  a  great  overruling  mind.     One  who  sees  the 
end  from  the  beginning,  can  retrospectively  be 
discerned    moulding   the   forces   of  freedom,   to 
prepare    for   emergencies    which    have    not    yet 
risen,  and    to   lay  foundations   on   which  future 
generations  may  build  the  superstructure  of  as 
yet  undreamed-of  progress.      Men  can  no  more 
banish  toil  to  a  foreseen  end  from  the  realm  of 
freedom,  than  from  the  realm  of  physical  life. 

It  becomes,  then,  a  matter  of  more  than  curio- 
sity, of  serious  concern,  in  view  of  the  course  of 
O 


210    THE  CHRISTIAN  PERSONALITY 

thought  which  we  have  been  pursuing,  to  discover 
what  relations  this  new  spiritual  force  of  Christian 
character  has  sustained  to  those  vast  public  move- 
ments. From  what  we  have  seen  of  this  force, 
as  influencing  individual  characters,  it  cannot 
remain  outside  them.  But  more,  if  this  force 
of  Christian  character  derive  from  God,  and  be 
in  immediate  contact  with  the  personal  True, 
one  would  expect  to  find  such  a  working  into 
line  with  God's  providential  overrule  as  would 
bear  out  the  claim  of  the  Christian  faith. 

And  here,  before  proceeding  in  the  most  rapid 
and  cursory  way  to  establish  the  affinities  of  the 
Christian  personality  with  those  outward  histori- 
cal movements,  it  may  be  well  to  quote  the  words 
of  a  scientific  student  of  society  of  marked  ability, 
Mr.  Benjamin  Kidd.  In  an  appendix  to  the  third 
edition  of  Social  Evolution^  he  says,  '  The  history 
of  Western  civilisation  is  in  fact  simply  the  natural 
history  of  the  Christian  religion.  It  is  this  re- 
ligion which  has  contributed  the  causes  that  have 
tended  to  the  production  of  the  type  of  social 
efficiency  developed  therein,  which  has  differen- 
tiated that  civilisation  from  all  others.' 

For  a  man  of  European  reputation  to  commit 
himself  to   such   a  statement,  which,  attracting 


AND   HUMAN   IDEALS  211 

attention  from  scientific  men,  has  never  met  with 
an  answer  carrying  general  conviction,  is  surely  a 
remarkable  thing.  There  is  no  system  of  thought, 
which  for  height — we  mean  elevation  of  subject- 
matter  above  common  experience — can  compare 
with  Christianity.  And  yet,  as  we  have  seen,  it 
strikes  with  transfiguring  force,  not  only  into 
society  but  into  the  organised  life  of  nations,  and 
into  those  waves  of  popular  enthusiasm  which, 
starting  sometimes  from  the  most  accidental 
causes,  have  often  exerted  immense  and  appar- 
ently interminable  influence  on  the  destinies  of 
men. 

To  treat  this  vast  subject  exhaustively  would 
be  to  go  back  over  the  whole  ground  which  we 
have  covered  in  preceding  chapters.  But  as  put- 
ting the  copestone  on  our  brief  survey  of  the 
social  influence  of  our  religion,  let  us  look  at  some 
of  these  instances  in  which,  through  those  move- 
ments which  we  have  described,  Christianity  has 
exerted  a  moulding  power  upon  history  of  a  very 
marked  kind.  And  at  the  very  outset  of  her 
course,  there  is  one  proof  of  her  power  which  in 
some  respects  has  never  been  excelled.  Here  we 
do  not  find  the  Faith,  in  the  living  personalities 
who  realised   its  power,  entering  into  a  positive 


212    THE  CHRISTIAN   PERSONALITY 

upward  movement,  but  arresting  a  universal 
downward  tendency,  and  absolutely  originating 
the  ascending  currents  which  were  to  create  a 
new  day.  This  first  great  movement  in  which 
the  early  Christians  found  themselves  enveloped, 
was  a  world-wide  lapse  to  disintegration  and 
decay.  At  many  points  in  our  argument,  we 
have  seen  how  the  social  forces  of  the  Christian 
personality  met  these  elements  of  decay,  assimi- 
lated what  could  be  assimilated,  purified  what 
could  be  purified,  supplied  new  forces  of  trust 
and  love,  and  so,  not  observably  in  one  year  or 
generation,  but  as  we  can  see,  over  centuries, 
bound  the  wreck  of  the  ancient  world  by  invis- 
ible bonds,  so  that  there  still  remained,  despite 
convulsions  and  incessant  intrigue  and  cyclonic 
barbarian  invasion,  some  remnants  of  a  com- 
mon consciousness  among  the  fragments,  some 
distant  glimpses  of  common  obligations  and 
interests.  Out  of  her  own  frame,  too,  the  Church 
provided  the  common  conception  which  gave 
outward  embodiment  to  the  sense  of  and  aspira- 
tion for  European  unity.  Over  against  her 
Spiritual  Empire,  growing  to  ever  wider  supre- 
macy, there  rose  the  Holy  Roman  Empire — a 
dream  and  an  ideal,  often  broken  down,  some- 


AND   HUMAN   IDEALS  213 

times  dragged  in  the  dust,  but  preserving  the 
tradition  of  a  thousand  years,  and  giving  scope, 
over  what  was  to  some  extent  a  common  Euro- 
pean area,  to  these  humanising  influences  which 
were  changing  the  very  foundations  of  govern- 
ment. 

And  from  this  upheaval,  like  the  lift  of  a  vast 
continent  above  the  waves,  how  many  subordinate 
movements  rose,  originating  in  the  circumstances 
of  the  hour,  taking  shape  from  the  actual  condi- 
tions of  the  age,  but  owing  their  spirit  to  what  of 
Christianity  became  operative  in  the  common  life. 
Knighthood  was  a  consecration  to  the  higher 
humanities,  of  that  supreme  talent  of  warfare, 
the  fruit  of  the  Christian  spirit,  making  men  con- 
scious of  the  gross  features  of  incessant  conflict, 
and  touching  minds  and  hearts  to  finer  issues. 
The  whirlwind  of  the  Crusades,  though  it  betrayed 
the  limitations  rather  than  the  purer  spirit  of 
Roman  Christianity,  was  religious  in  essence,  the 
result  in  a  rough  warlike  time  of  a  most  vivid 
realisation  of  the  Unseen.  In  each  successive 
blast  of  enthusiasm,  there  was  an  admixture  of 
manifold  motives — lower  and  higher,  crafty  and 
even  base,  as  well  as  unselfish  and  heroic.  The 
panicles    were    the    particles    of    our    ordinary 


214    THE   CHRISTIAN   PERSONALITY 

humanity,  but  the  wind  that  raised  them  was  a 
conviction  wrought  in  them  by  supernatural  hopes 
and  fears. 

Following,  too,  upon  peace  sprang  up  efforts 
after  popular  education,  a  cultivation  of  the  arts  of 
peace — agriculture,  and  industry,  and  commerce. 
To  the  prevailing  military  type,  other  civic  types 
succeeded.  The  coarse  egoism  of  the  battlefield 
was  further  broken  down,  by  ideals  of  poverty,  of 
service,  of  death  to  worldly  ambition,  created  by 
the  nobler  forms  of  monasticism.  Then  there 
were  great  monarchs  in  those  rude  times,  like 
Charlemagne,  who  was  possessed  with  the  ideas 
of  a  Christian  imperialism,  which  lived  on  though 
the  frame  of  his  empire  was  broken. 

To  us  who  look  across  the  centuries  with  the 
help  of  the  focussing  lenses  of  historic  science, 
the  words  which  we  have  quoted  from  Mr.  Kidd 
are  simply  true.  Yea,  the  Church  often  shook  the 
throne.  Yet,  as  we  do  well  to  remember,  common 
human  life  rested  on  material  foundations,  as  it 
rests  to-day.  Men  ploughed  and  sowed,  bought 
and  purchased,  schemed  at  courts,  debated  in 
parliaments,  fought  in  battlefields.  Dynastic 
rivalries,  plottings  and  counter-plottings,  strifes 
of  classes,  with   all   the   molecular   activities   of 


AND   HUMAN   IDEALS  215 

smaller  communities,  engrossed   men.      Passions 
were  fiercer,  laws  far  from  so  omnipotent,  personal 
licence  more  unmeasured.      There  were  not  the 
wide  horizons,  the  diffused  information,  the  culti- 
vated   interests,  the  philanthropic  ideals,  which, 
withdrawing  multitudes  from  the  direct  struggle 
for  existence,  at  once  refine  the  spirit,  and  relax 
the    tension    of    public    life.      Those    Christian 
impulses    came    then,    as    they    come    now,    in 
assimilated  lives,  in  Christian  personalities  built 
up  for  influence,  in   thoughts    made   living   and 
operative  throughout  these  old  societies,  in  affini- 
ties established  between  Christian  principles  and 
the  practical  ideals  of  men,  unit  by  unit,  step  by 
step,  moment  after  moment.     Absolute  monarchs 
might  here  force  the  pace,  or  there  interpose  the 
obstacle  of  their  unlimited  authority,  but  like  the 
building   of   the   coral    reef  .in   storm   and  calm, 
the   real   work   went  on    amid    all   these  surface 
changes. 

This  is  now  the  place  at  which  to  point  out  a 
further  affinity  or  correspondence  of  the  Christian 
personality,  not  only  with  material,  political,  and 
intellectual  movements  into  which  it  is  caught 
up,  but  with  the  law  of  history  or  rather  the  over- 
ruling mind,  grouping  movements  and  correlating 


2i6    THE  CHRISTIAN   PERSONALITY 

tendencies  to  create  for  that  personality  a  new- 
theatre  of  opportunity,  in  which  it  might  ad- 
vance to  larger  influence.  In  saying  this  we 
speak  with  the  deepest  reverence.  We  do  not 
presume  to  forecast  the  courses  of  providence. 
We  do  not  presume,  from  any  revealed  know- 
ledge we  have  of  the  divine  purpose  and  end, 
to  pronounce  upon  what  God's  intentions  must 
be  at  every  moment.  We  being  finite,  within 
finite  horizons,  can  only  finite-wise  grasp  His 
purpose.  He  being  infinite,  takes  an  infinite 
circuit  to  the  end  which  He  infinitely  conceives. 
We  simply  take  a  lesson  from  science.  In  the 
great  principle  of  continuity,  she  has  formulated 
the  great  truth  that  nature  was  not  intended  either 
to  deceive  or  baffle  us.  She  expects  to  find  cause 
preceding  effect,  effect  following  cause,  without  a 
break  from  beginning  to  end.  But  there  are  other 
things  in  nature  besides  cause  and  effect.  There  is 
apparent  plan  or  design,  the  grouping  of  many 
elements  to  some  foreseen  end.  There  is  not  a 
causal,  but  there  is  a  purposive,  connection  here. 
Human  reason  irresistibly  discerns  this,  cannot 
even  explain  innumerable  facts  save  in  the 
language  of  purpose.  With  as  much  reason 
might  a  man  mistrust  his  perception  of  a  cause 


AND   HUMAN   IDEALS  217 

as  of  a  purpose,  and  so  paralyse  his  science,  as 
not  a  few  have  to  their  infinite  loss  paralysed 
their  instinctive  reverence,  and  conviction  of  the 
divine. 

We  have  thus  far  sought  to  indicate  the  exist- 
ence of  purpose,  in  nature  and  in  human  affairs, 
that  we  may  not  be  hindered  by  any  floating 
mistrust  from  perceiving  the  full  force  of  the 
following  historical  illustration.  For  centuries 
before  the  great  religious  revolution  of  the  six- 
teenth century,  attentive  contemporary  observers 
might  have  noted  many  new  elements  breaking 
the  torpor  of  the  middle  ages,  evident  harbingers 
of  a  coming  time.  These  however  were  so  dis- 
similar, appearing  simultaneously  or  successively 
in  many  different  fields,  on  entirely  different  planes 
of  interest,  that  no  common  end  could  be  con- 
ceived as  being  served  by  them.  What  common 
purpose  could  underlie  events  so  dissimilar  as  the 
growth  of  religious  mysticism  and  the  revival  of 
pagan  philosophy,  peasant  revolts  and  the  specu- 
lations of  closet  philosophers  about  the  relations 
of  church  and  state,  the  invention  of  printing  by 
movable  types  and  the  passing  of  Magna  Charta, 
maritime  explorations  and  the  martyr  witness  of 
-Huss,   Erasmus's  study   of  the  New  Testament 


2i8    THE  CHRISTIAN   PERSONALITY 

and  the  movement  of  the  Turks  on  the  south- 
eastern frontiers  of  Europe,  the  satires  of  Sir 
David  Lyndsay  and  the  domestic  politics  of 
Savonarola's  Florence  ?  On  ordinary  levels  there 
was  or  could  be  no  possible  relating  of  all  these 
circumstances.  But  substances  fuse  at  very  high 
temperatures,  which  remain  untouched  in  ordinary 
furnace  heats.  And  all  these  elements,  and  many 
more  besides,  were  turned  into  contributory  forces 
or  constituent  elements  of  a  great  new  movement 
of  the  human  spirit,  by  a  mighty  flame  of  new  con- 
viction, springing  from  direct  communion  of  man 
with  the  living  God.  What  they  all  in  effect 
contributed  to  serve — what  we  must  believe  they 
were  adjusted  to  each  other  to  serve,  unless  we 
are  to  hold  that  chance  orders  the  affairs  of  men 
— was  a  quickening  and  energising  of  human 
personality,  which  He,  who  was  ordering  all, 
was  to  bring  forth  in  the  fulness  of  time,  through 
the  working  of  His  truth  and  Spirit.  In  this 
we  have  not  the  Christian  personality  moulding 
movements,  but  movements  of  all  kinds  being 
controlled  to  create  a  new  arena  of  opportunity 
for  that  personality,  to  work  in  many  new  direc- 
tions, and  on  a  loftier  plane. 

This   marks  a  wonderful  advance.      Paul  had 


AND   HUMAN   IDEALS  219 

said,  •  if  there  be  any  praise,  think  on  these  things.' 
In  his  day  Christian  character  was  just  entering 
into  an  ah'en  system  of  things,  slowly  establishing 
relations  with  every  remanent  element  of  good. 
But  now,  Christian  character  is  the  central  force 
of  history.     All  those  movements  and  tendencies 
visibly  converge  on  a  spiritual  fact,  man's  direct 
fellowship   with  God,  as  their  reason   and  end. 
And    the    Christian    personality    thus    fertilised 
originates  a  great  variety  of  movements— intel- 
lectual, social,  political— whose  developments  fill 
all  the  centuries  since.     In  addition  to  all  those' 
influences  which  it  put  forth  in  earlier  centuries, 
it  moved  on  new  planes  to  an  entirely  different 
set  of  activities.     The  new  liberties  of  immediate 
fellowship    with    God    kindled    an    incorruptible 
sense  of  freedom,  and  inherent  rights,  religious  and 
civil,  which   has   antiquated   despotism,   doomed 
slavery,  banished  ignorance,  overthrown  privilege, 
created  the  free  Church  in  the  free  State,  and 
prompted  the  incessant  endeavours  to  improve 
the  social  conditions  of  the  people. 

And  while  thus  the  forces  of  Christian  char- 
acter have  been  inspiring,  on  many  planes,  human 
movements  to  larger  good,  Providence  has  been 
working    to    give    a    marvellous    ascendency   to 


220    THE   CHRISTIAN    PERSONALITY 

those  social  ideas  and  principles.  Here  we  have 
a  series  of  events  more  remarkable  than  that 
convergence  of  seeming  heterogeneous  circum- 
stances, on  a  spiritual  fact  hidden  in  the  womb 
of  time,  to  which  we  have  referred.  Wiclif,  Huss, 
Savonarola,  and  many  besides,  stood  for  con- 
science, and  the  cause  of  religious  freedom  seemed 
to  sink  to  ruin  in  their  ashes.  But  not  only  were 
they  to  triumph  on  European  soil ;  maritime 
exploration  was,  all  unwitting,  clearing  a  way 
for  the  establishment  on  the  virgin  soil  of  new 
continents  of  nations  begotten  and  built  up  in 
these  liberties=  And  this  movement  has  advanced 
so  far,  that  even  already  the  political  centre  of 
gravity  has  shifted,  and  the  balance  of  power  is 
in  the  hand  of  the  English-speaking  peoples  of 
the  world.  And  wonderful  to  tell,  while  the 
nations  in  which  Christian  character  is  the  most 
powerful  force  are  in  the  van  of  civilised  kingdoms, 
they  stand  in  the  most  commanding,  and  indeed 
governing,  relations  to  the  heathen  world. 

It  is  one  of  the  greatest  efforts  of  human 
genius  to  involve  a  vast  variety  of  incidents  in 
the  argument  of  an  epic  poem,  that  they  may 
be  grouped  around  a  single  person,  or  idea,  and 
evolved  in  orderly  succession,  so  as,  in  infinite 


AND   HUMAN   IDEALS  221 

variety,  to  set  off  every  side  of  the  theme,  and 
thus  form  an  artistic  unity.  We  place  Homer 
and  Virgil  and  Milton  among  the  great  ones  of 
the  earth.  But  to  them  is  given  only  the  shaping 
power  of  imagination.  When,  however,  on  the 
higher  plane  of  the  actual  forces,  and  institutions, 
and  persons  of  this  world,  we  see  preparations 
being  made  across  centuries; — powers  and  ele- 
ments being  stored  up  with  a  view  to  a  great 
movement,  which,  in  turn,  gives  rise  to  effects, 
and  influences,  and  suggestions  that  work  on 
with  healthful  force  for  centuries  to  come,  must 
we  refuse  to  admire  so  far-reaching  a  plan,  or 
ask  the  origin  of  a  connection  of  circumstances, 
breathing  of  purpose  in  every  line?  If  we  trust 
our  faculties  in  the  realm  of  cause  and  effect,  why 
not  trust  our  faculties  when,  beyond  all  possible 
human  power,  we  see  events  grouped  and  cor- 
related to  a  far-off  and  unseen  end,  when  the 
Divine  Personality  discovers  Himself  in  a  purpose, 
which  could  only  have  meaning  and  value  for 
a  Spiritual  Intelligence.  To  point  out  all  these 
consequences  of  the  Reformation  would  be  to 
write  the  history  of  Western  Europe.  Even  the 
many- headed  movement  of  socialism,  in  the 
opinion    of  distinguished    representatives,    owes 


222    THE  CHRISTIAN   PERSONALITY 

its  origin  to  the  new  views  of  man  and  human 
right  made  current  in  that  creative  age. 

The  limits  assigned  to  these  chapters  will  not 
allow  us  to  refer  in  detail,  to  the  many  move- 
ments which  the  forces  of  the  Christian  con- 
science originated,  or  which  the  Christian  spirit 
took  up,  raised  to  a  higher  plane,  and  used  for 
the  highest  good  of  mankind.  We  must,  how- 
ever, point  out  one  most  impressive  respect  in 
which  the  affinity  of  the  Christian  personality 
with  human  nature  is  seen  in  solitary  majesty. 
The  Christian  personality  is  the  only  intelligence 
that  has  ever  steadily  and  consistently,  for  any 
length  of  time,  directed  its  efforts  to  the  well- 
being  of  the  race.  The  horizon  of  all  other 
workers  is  narrow,  and  even  militantly  narrow, 
in  comparison.  Long  before  civil  governments 
turned  their  thoughts  from  the  entanglements 
of  European  diplomacy,  the  Christian  conscience 
moved  out  into  regions  beyond.  The  world  is 
its  country  and  mankind  its  brothers.  The 
enormities  of  the  slave-trade  engaged  its  atten- 
tion. The  iniquity  of  slavery  moved  Christian 
men  to  action  and  self-sacrifice.  Heathens  were 
protected,  against  themselves,  from  the  worst 
cruelties  of  their  religious  systems.     And  above 


AND   HUMAN   IDEALS  223 

all,  the   churches   committed    themselves    to   an 
organised  effort  at  world -conquest 

With  the  religious  results  of  these  missions 
we  have  not  here  directly  to  do.  But  they  have 
had  magnificent  social  effects.  A  friend  of  ours, 
a  missionary  from  the  South  Seas,  was  once 
accosted  roughly  by  a  sea-captain  and  challenged 
before  an  unsympathetic  auditory  to  show  the 
utility  of  Foreign  Missions.  'Sir,'  said  our 
friend,  'if  you  had  been  shipwrecked  on  my 
island  twenty  years  ago,  you  would  have  been 
killed  that  night  and  eaten  next  morning.  To- 
day, you  would  be  received  into  a  Christian 
community  and  receive  every  kindness  and  at- 
tention.' No  such  work,  in  the  sudden  creation 
of  really  civilised  communities  out  of  the  most 
unpromising  materials,  has  been  accomplished 
by  any  other  force,  or  has  ever  before  been 
accomplished  in  the  history  of  man.  The 
Christian  conscience  that  found  elements  in 
common,  and  woke  new  affinities  in  the  breasts 
of  Greek  rhetoricians  and  Roman  senators,  has 
a  cunning  touch  of  the  savage  heart. 

Then  look  at  the  subsidiary  results  of  this 
Christian  enterprise.  Missions  had  long  done  a 
pioneer  work  all  round  the    African  coast,  had 


224     THE  CHRISTIAN    PERSONALITY 

pierced  the  secret  of  the  Dark  Continent  in  the 
person  of  Livingstone,  before,  by  the  magnetism 
of  his  great  and  simple  nature,  and  his  touching 
sacrifice,  he  attracted  to  that  land  the  notice  of 
the  world.  Great  things  must  come  from  the 
partition  of  Africa,  but  here  nations  are  following 
the  Church — the  political,  the  Spiritual.  In  India, 
too.  Christians  of  every  name  are  turning  to 
the  highest  good  of  that  congeries  of  peoples,  the 
British  supremacy,  which  was  not  worthily  won. 
No  one  can  deny  the  place  of  the  Christian 
spirit,  in  the  yearnings  for  progress  and  reform, 
at  last  so  strong  in  China.  This  universal  adapt- 
ation of  Christian  forces  is  a  mighty  new  proof  of 
the  supremacy  of  our  religion  as  a  social  influence. 
Beyond  all  question,  we  are  in  the  dawn  of 
a  new  day,  in  which,  despite  all  antagonist  in- 
fluences, the  Spiritual  is  rising  to  a  new  ascend- 
ency among  men.  If  Christians  are  true  as  in 
former  times,  the  Spiritual  will  cast  even  the 
material  forces  of  society  into  disparagement, 
as  it  rises  in  new  power,  freely  attracting  to 
a  service  of  liberty,  the  intellect  and  conscience 
of  men.  The  temporal,  which  seems  so  solid, 
is  evanescent  as  a  breaking  bubble.  Faith — 
conviction — vanishing    like    a    breath,   is    alone 


AND    HUMAN    IDEALS  225 

solid  and  eternal.  Expressed  in  words,  wrought 
out  in  momentary  deeds,  it  does  not  falter,  fail 
with  the  circumstances  which  attend  its  birth, 
but  lives  on  through  all  change — as  Cardinal  Pole 
is  made  to  say  in  Tennyson's  Queen  Mary — 

'  I  have  seen 
A  pine  in  Italy  that  cast  its  shadow 
Athwart  a  cataract  :  firm  stood  the  pine — 
The  cataract  shook  the  shadow.' 


CHAPTER    X 

EPILOGUE 

The  field  of  thought  which  we  had  marked  out 
is  now  covered.  And  as  we  have  kept  close  to 
the  ground  of  practical  utility  all  through,  the 
reader  might  well  be  left  to  draw  his  own  in- 
ferences and  conclusions.  As  we  are  coming 
to  the  point,  however,  of  putting  out  of  hand, 
thoughts  with  which  we  have  long  kept  company, 
and  as  rising  up  from  the  strait  horizons  of  the 
separate  parts  we  catch  the  drift  of  our  modest 
treatise,  as  an  accomplished  result,  we  are  con- 
scious of  certain  objections  which  may  rise  in  the 
minds  of  different  readers,  which,  if  we  might,  we 
would  obviate  and  put  away. 

One  objection  has  from  the  beginning  been 
present  to  our  thought,  with  which  we  have  in 
part  already  dealt.  Many  would  not  scruple  to 
say,  'You  have  been  describing  a  barren  Utopia, 
beyond  human  nature's  daily  realisation,  and,  if 
realisable,  so  slow,  and   limited  in  action  as  to 


EPILOGUE  227 

leave  vast  areas  of  the  social  problem  untouched.' 
This  is  said  with  an  air  of  absolute  conviction,  as 
if  the  matter  were  a  foregone  conclusion.  And 
yet,  when  we  examine  the  grounds  on  which  it  is 
held,  and  realise  the  changes  on  the  Christian 
method  which  it  suggests,  we  find  the  conviction 
to  be  baseless,  the  conclusion  a  fallacy. 

We  do  not  return  to  show,  as  has  already  been 
more  than  once  done,  that  if  you  take  away  the 
distinctively  Christian  character  as  cause,  you 
cannot  have  the  social  effects  which  it  has  pro- 
duced. Social  problems,  however,  are  so  complex, 
it  is  so  easy  to  lose  ourselves  in  the  secondary 
causes  and  elements  of  a  situation,  and  so  few 
comparatively  have  the  faculty  to  run  to  earth 
the  true  source  of  any  social  movements,  that  this 
consideration,  though  absolutely  final,  does  not 
weigh  with  many.  Let  us  look  at  this  matter 
from  an  entirely  different  point  of  view. 

We  have  naturalised  the  saying  of  our  neigh- 
bours, that  men  have  the  defects  of  their  qualities. 
Masses  of  men,  however,  sometimes  become  wall- 
eyed, through  the  very  intensity  with  which  they 
pursue  certain  lines  of  thought.  And  they  are 
sometimes  most  absolute,  when  the  telescope  is 
at  the  blind  eye,  and  they  are  reading  off  their 


228  EPILOGUE 

own  limitations  as  if  they  were  laws  of  the  uni- 
verse. For  a  very  considerable  time,  now,  the 
active  and  aggressive  minds  of  the  world  have 
been  laying  hands  on  old  institutions  which 
had  ceased  to  serve  their  purpose,  and  have 
been  rearranging  society  on  a  popular  basis. 
Government — national,  district,  municipal — is  in 
the  hands  of  the  people.  And  wonderful  changes 
have  taken  place,  as  the  result  of  this  age-long 
tendency.  A  new  faith  in  regimentation  has 
risen  up  in  the  hearts  of  men.  Having  gone  so 
far,  many  are  encouraged  to  believe  that  they  can 
go  much  farther.  Choosing,  for  instance,  what  is 
of  service  in  Christianity,  the  people  can  work 
it  up  into  a  popular  system  of  rule  which  will 
meet  all  social  need,  and  secure  the  welfare  of 
mankind. 

The  telescope  is  to  the  blind  eye.  An  infer- 
ence is  being  drawn  from  one  set  of  circumstances, 
and  applied  to  a  wholly  different  set  of  circum- 
stances. A  study  of  the  well-known  remarks  of 
Comte  on  organisation  and  liberty,  might  show 
the  confined  scope  of  such  efforts  as  those  in 
which  these  men  have  been  engaged.  Organi- 
sation, he  tells  us,  is  the  positive  law  of  society, 
but  when   in   any  instances   organisations   have 


EPILOGUE  229 

ceased  to  serve  beneficent  ends,  then  liberty — 
an  inherently  negative  good — liberty  to  innovate 
or  rearrange,  becomes  a  very  positive  blessing. 
What  man  has  made,  man  is  free  to  unmake  and 
rearrange.  But  there  are  many  institutions  in 
this  world  where  human  liberty  has  no  regulative 
force.  It  is  not  given  even  to  a  congress  of 
scientists,  to  rearrange  the  principles  of  electrical 
science  by  popular  vote.  They  must  simply 
receive  and  truly  interpret  them,  or  they  would 
come  to  grief.  And  so  revelation,  which  does 
not  simply  lay  bare  the  laws  of  a  particular 
natural  force,  but  carries  us  back  into  living 
relation  with  the  Divine  Personality  who  origi- 
nated and  sustains  them  all,  is  simply  to  be 
received.  The  energies  by  which  it  has  renewed 
the  face  of  the  earth,  are  only  for  those  who  have 
yielded  their  wills  to  the  Divine  will. 

When  such  thoughts  create  a  suitable  rever- 
ence, those  persons  of  whom  we  have  been  speak- 
ing will  see  that  they  cannot  improve  on  the 
Divine  method.  It  is  to  read  a  private  prejudice 
into  facts,  to  call  religion  a  Utopia.  No  force 
in  Britain  is  more  powerful.  What  organisa- 
tions are  so  widely  diffused  ?  The  daily  press 
comes  as  a  wind  of  opinion  and  is  gone.     Where 


230  EPILOGUE 

it  is  an  intellectual  force,  it  only  touches  a  select 
portion  of  the  people  ;  and,  mainly  as  a  carrier 
of  news,  interests  the  masses  of  mankind.  In 
every  parish  in  the  land  the  church  is  a  stable 
institution,  an  organised  centre  of  influence  and 
activity.  Children  grow  up  under  the  shadow  of 
it.  The  tenderest  and  most  solemn  associations 
of  life  twine  themselves  around  the  House  of 
God  amid  environing  graves.  And  if  there  come 
seasons  of  reaction,  when  the  world  gains  on  the 
Church,  there  have  been,  and  please  God,  will  be, 
others,  when  all  terrene  institutions  and  interests 
shall  dwindle  into  insignificance  as  mere  surface 
matters,  compared  with  the  supreme  concerns  of 
the  soul. 

This  age,  which  many  have  been  regarding  as 
the  apex  of  all  the  past,  is  really,  at  least  in  these 
tendencies  to  which  we  have  referred  but  the 
coming  to  a  turn,  of  the  long  reaction  of  liberty, 
against  the  imperfect  organisations  which  hitherto 
have  done  the  business  of  the  world.  And  now 
that  this  disintegrating  work  of  liberty  is  wellnigh 
done,  now  that  government  in  every  kind  is  on  a 
popular  basis,  the  question  for  this  and  succeeding 
ages  is,  what  are  we  going  to  make  of  our  new 
democratic    machine,   so   as   to   accomplish   the 


EPILOGUE  231 

highest  social  good  ?  By  what  principles  are  the 
democracies  of  the  future  to  be  regulated,  on 
what  foundation  are  they  going  to  build  ?  Led 
captive  by  a  phrase,  are  they  to  regard  govern- 
ment of  the  people,  by  the  people,  and  for  the 
people,  as  involving  self-sufficiency,  and  the 
throwing  off  all  submission  to  God,  with  the 
political  and  social  servitudes  of  the  past?  Or 
even  in  the  fulness  of  our  personal  and  social 
liberties,  are  we  going  to  realise  our  creature 
limitations?  To  choose  the  former  —  and  it 
seems  already  to  be  the  implicit  choice  of  multi- 
tudes— is  to  go  back  to  the  pagan  isolation  of 
the  past.  To  choose  the  latter  course — to  realise 
that,  as  we  live  in  a  universe  which  we  cannot 
bend  to  our  will,  but  whose  laws  we  must  observe 
to  utilise,  so  we  are  the  creatures  of  a  God  whom 
we  must  obey,  to  know,  and  rest  in,  and  enjoy ; 
in  other  words,  to  bring  our  social  as  our  in- 
dividual life  more  fully  under  law  to  Him,  is  to 
reach  out  to  human  fellowships,  and  stimulating 
moral  liberties  in  these  fellowships,  such  as  the 
world  has  never  seen,  and  approximate  toward 
that  millennial  glory  which  the  prophets  foresaw. 
In  this  aspect,  we  have  during  the  present 
generation    a   superb   opportunity   of   making   a 


232  EPILOGUE 

decision,  which  shall  carry  forward  from  the  past 
all  her  noblest  results,  and  affect  the  course  of 
ages  yet  unborn.  We  do  not  refer  to  any  re- 
establishment  of  religion,  or  even  to  any  extensive 
reorganisation  of  the  Church,  but  rather  the  falling 
away  from  individual,  and  partial,  and  mere  earthly 
standpoints,  of  the  great  mass  of  our  people  to 
realise,  more  thoroughly  than  ever,  the  necessity 
as  for  individual  so  for  social  well-being  of  a  living 
spiritual  religion.  It  is  the  leaven  in  character 
which  tells  on  the  social  life  of  the  world.  We 
want  to  impress — so  far  as  our  words  can  go — 
all  Christian  men  with  the  conviction,  that  more 
than  ever  in  these  democratic  days  religion  is  a 
great  social  necessity.  There  is  a  responsibility 
lying  upon  them,  of  exerting  their  full  influence 
on  their  fellow-men,  of  discovering  in  every 
sphere  the  power  of  their  faith,  such  as  has 
burdened  no  previous  generation  of  mankind. 
Our  horizons  have  so  widened,  our  resources  are 
so  immensely  increased,  the  solidarity  of  the 
various  races  and  families  of  man  has  advanced 
so  far,  that  the  central  problem  fronting  us, 
whether  we  shall  sink  toward  the  secular  level,  or 
rise  further  toward  the  Christian  ideal,  carries  in 
its  heart  woe  or  weal  for  the  whole  world. 


EPILOGUE  233 

Now,  one  thing  we  think  is  evident,  even  from 
such  a  sh'ght  survey  as  we  have  been  able  to  give 
of  the  social  potencies  of  the  Christian  character, 
and  that  is  the  solitary  power  of  Christianity  as 
a  social  force.  Put  aside  for  a  moment  all  that 
invests  the  Christian  religion,  for  the  most  of  us, 
with  unspeakable  reverence — test  it  by  principles 
and  results  in  this  one  relation,  and  what  we  have 
asserted  will  be  fully  established.  To  put  the 
matter  in  a  nutshell,  the  difference  between 
Christianity  and  other  social  theories  is,  that 
while  they  are  mere  social  arrangements,  it  is  a 
social  dynamic.  The  extreme  forms  of  socialism 
are  founded  on  mistrust  of  the  individual.  It 
invokes  a  Dens  ex  machina  stronger  than  the 
individual,  which  may  bring  all  within  limits, 
and  reduce  them  to  a  level.  Christianity  purifies 
and  disciplines  the  individual,  takes  away  the 
divisive,  and  plants  a  social  principle  within  his 
heart,  and  leaves  him  to  build  up  a  society  with 
those  like-minded,  based  on  mutual  love.  And 
so  the  soul  of  the  Christian  scheme  is  liberty,  of 
those  other  theories  force.  Christianity  works 
for  personality,  that  every  man  may  be  free  and 
may  be  helped  to  become  all,  in  the  highest 
respects,  that  he  was  designed  to  be.     To  secure 


234  EPILOGUE 

material  content,  the  other  theories  do  not  scruple 
to  override  essential  qualities  of  personality. 

So  much  for  general  distinctions.  Let  us  now 
rapidly  sketch  the  chief  outlines  of  the  Christian 
social  method,  which  ought  to  commend  it,  not 
only  to  believers,  but  to  whomsoever  the  higher 
life  of  man  is  a  reality  and  precious.  And  first 
of  all,  reverting  to  a  remark  of  Mr.  Ruskin,  whom 
we  have  already  quoted,  Christianity  does  not 
isolate  the  problems  of  man's  social  relations,  but 
treats  them  as  one  aspect  of  his  whole  life  and 
manifold  activities.  Not  till  the  whole  person- 
ality of  man  in  its  origin,  environment,  functions, 
and  end  is  understood,  can  the  meaning  of  his 
social  relations  be  grasped.  But  in  Christianity 
a  far  more  important  discovery  than  that  of  man 
is  made  —  the  discovery  of  God  —  not  that  He 
is,  but  what  He  is.  In  studying  the  relation 
between  sun  and  planets,  Newton  hit  on  that 
theory  of  gravitation,  which  explains  how  rain 
descends,  and  rivers  run  to  the  sea,  and  mud  falls 
to  the  bottom,  and  a  thousand  things  happen 
round  our  own  doors  every  day.  In  this  universe 
it  is  the  great  things  which  explain  the  less, 
not  the  less  the  greater.  And  so  from  the  dis- 
covery of  our  master-relation  to  God,  or  rather 


EPILOGUE  235 

from  God's  discovery  to  us  of  a  new  relation  of 
love  and  grace  into  which  He  would  bring  us,  a 
light  falls,  as  we  have  seen,  upon  the  whole  of  life, 
illumines  every  relation,  discovers  the  immeasur- 
able worth  of  human  existence,  and  invests  per- 
sonal judgment,  and  decision,  and  action,  and 
co-operation,  with  momentous  results. 

We  are  not  playing  in  an  unreal  world  with 
tokens,  to  which  we  give  the  names  false  and  true, 
keeping  up  the  game,  but  uncertain  how  far  what 
we  and  our  neighbours  bustle  about,  has  any 
relation  to  reality.  The  Christian  has  touched 
reality,  central  eternal  reality,  in  God.  Yea, 
reality  has  touched  him,  in  the  Holy  Spirit.  He 
has  won  his  way  through  to  the  bed-rock  of 
being.  Things  have  a  momentous  importance 
for  him,  because  everywhere  he  has  to  deal  with 
God's  facts  in  God's  universe.  Everything  must 
be  related  to  His  will,  even  what  is  the  right  use 
of  money,  position,  power,  and  so  forth.  And 
not  only  regarding  single  things,  but  in  a  larger 
scope,  we  must  act  in  the  millionfold  relations, 
and  with  the  millionfold  forces,  of  social  life 
according  to  our  best  judgments,  so  as  to 
bring  all — it  may  be  only  in  distant  approxi- 
mation— yet  as  near  as  possible  to   His  mind. 


236  EPILOGUE 

Again  we  say,  we  are  not  playing  the  game, 
working  out  our  own  scheme,  but  approaching 
to  reality — ideal  reality,  eternal  in  God,  by  how 
much  we  are  far  from  it,  weak  ;  by  how  much 
we  conform,  strong. 

Here,  as  we  have  seen,  there  is  nothing  stereo- 
typed. We  are  delivered  up  to  the  service  of  the 
absolute  True,  and  there  can  be  no  goal  for  us 
till  we  reach  the  True.  Though  we  have  just 
lain  down  to  rest,  when  the  bugle  sounds  we 
must  up  and  march  again.  Every  glint  of  truth, 
every  fragment  of  an  idea,  every  genuine  criticism 
of  a  position  whencesoever  coming,  must  be  wel- 
comed. We  have  neither  interest  nor  limit  but 
the  full-orbed  truth.  That  Christians  have  not 
always  lived  up  to  the  height  of  this  master- 
relation  is  all  too  true.  When  they  have  sub- 
stituted the  interests  of  a  Church  or  Creed  or 
School  for  the  service  of  God  in  His  Spirit,  they 
have  sunk  to  fearful  depths  of  craft  and  selfish- 
ness. But  either  they  had  to  part  with  Christ, 
or  part  with  that  spirit.  The  truly  Christian 
conscience  burst  the  old  servitudes.  And  then 
the  grand  Christian  sense  of  reality,  seen  in 
unflinching  obedience  to  right  and  unswerving 
reverence  of  God,  has  transfigured  the  world. 


EPILOGUE  237 

If  we  have  faith  in  the  essential  goodness  of 
the  scheme  of  things,  and  if  what  we  want  is  not 
to  pluck  the  greatest  advantage  for  ourselves  or 
our  class,  but  the  highest  good  for  all — the  view 
just  given  should  be  sufficient  to  impress  us  with 
the  peerless  influence  for  social  well-being  of  the 
Christian  faith.  But  further,  Christianity  follows 
the  example  of  nature  in  all  realms  of  life  in 
building  up  from  a  creative  unit  of  force,  and  thus 
has  the  support  of  all  other  parts  of  the  Divine 
plan.  Mr.  Kidd,  as  we  have  shown,  has  pointed 
out  the  solitary  power  of  a  supernatural  religion 
as  a  social  force.  But  beyond  insisting  on  ultra- 
rational  sanctions  as  being  necessary  to  the 
production  of  this  influence,  he  does  not  conduct 
a  special  inquiry  to  discover  what  in  religion, 
or  in  the  personality  influenced  by  it,  actually 
produced  these  effects.  Approaching  the  sub- 
ject from  the  side  of  science,  that  did  not  lie 
to  his  hand.  He  accepted  the  fact  of  reli- 
gion as  other  facts,  and  noted  its  public  effects. 
Approaching  the  same  problem  from  the  side 
of  religion,  it  is  to  this  we  have  turned  our 
thoughts.  And  limited  though  the  area  of  our 
discussion  has  been,  and  dominated  by  an 
immediately   practical   aim,  we   have   seen   that 


238  EPILOGUE 

in  this  spiritual  cell  formed  by  the  recreative 
touch  of  God,  and  fertilised  by  the  Spirit,  you 
have  the  spring  of  the  whole  movement.  Hegel 
speaks  of  the  human  spirit  as  a  subject-object, 
a  sort  of  double-headed  reality,  with  a  face  to 
the  inner  world  of  self,  and  another  to  the 
outer  world  of  matter.  In  the  field  of  moral 
endeavour,  the  Christian  personality  is  such  a 
double-headed  reality. 

Within,  there  is  a  most  intense  sense  of  in- 
dividual responsibility.  But  with  this,  there 
is  a  personal  surrender  of  his  being  to  God, 
which  fully  opens  his  life  to  the  play  of 
motives  and  considerations,  which  are  central 
to  the  whole  race.  And  these  two  impulses 
meet,  and  are  harmonised  in  perpetual  union 
with,  and  assimilation  of,  the  Spirit  of  Christ. 
Because  Jesus  has  met  his  responsibilities,  and 
helped  him  to  come  into  essential  harmony 
with  his  moral  ideal,  —  the  will  of  God,  —  he 
yields  himself  to  Christ.  And  he  yields  himself, 
in  order  that  by  the  power  of  Christ  he  may, 
from  love,  rise  into  conformity  to  the  Divine 
will.  And  drinking  thus  a  larger  life,  with  a 
personal  end  and  anxiety  to  begin  with,  he 
wakens  to  a  new  fact,   that   perfection  is   love, 


EPILOGUE  239 

not  something  to  get  merely,  but  something 
which  we  get  in  giving,  a  spirit  of  service,  a 
living  for  the  whole  as  God  lives,  greatness 
lying  in  the  capacity  of  service — he  that  is  chief 
of  all,  being  servant  of  all. 

Here  again  it  is  evident  we  have  to  do  not 
with  an  effusive  altruism, — a  calculated  bene- 
volence that  lies  within  the  limits  of  human 
judgment, — but  with  what  reaches  to  the  roots 
of  things.  In  the  thirst  for  spiritual  perfection, 
the  soul  is  carried  out  in  service  of  humanity 
and  God.  In  all  such  service,  and  amid  its 
millionfold  details,  the  soul  goes  up  for  personal 
reward  to  a  fuller  personal  conformity  with  the 
Divine  will,  which  in  turn  becomes  the  platform 
of  a  vaster  vision.  And  both  these  impulses  are 
sustained  in  him,  by  the  inflowing  Spirit,  and 
close  personal  communion  with  the  living  Christ. 
In  a  very  real  sense,  then,  Christ  is  born  again, 
reincarnated  in  the  believer,  and  lives  and  works 
through  him.  This  being  so,  must  there  not  be 
in  the  social  service  of  Christian  personalities  a 
steadiness,  a  unity,  a  far-reaching  scope  unknown 
to  the  sporadic  and  limited  influences  of  other 
men?  While  stooping  with  an  unrivalled  sympathy 
to  the  immediate  necessities  of  man,  it  does  not 


240  EPILOGUE 

rest  in  these.  There  is  an  intensity  in  its  common 
kindnesses,  from  vision  of  the  greatness  of  the  soul. 
In  all  beneficence,  too,  there  is  a  cathartic  and 
elevating  aim.  It  attacks  the  problem  of  human 
need  not  in  spots,  nor  by  random  impulse,  nor  for 
immediate  results,  but  on  plan,  going  out  to  the 
circumference  of  human  need  in  the  missionary 
enterprise,  toiling  at  tasks  which  may  not  bear 
fruit  for  many  days.  Then  all  such  labour  on 
the  floor  of  earth  is  engirt  by  the  boundless 
horizon  of  man's  eternal  destinies. 

We  spoke  at  length  of  the  Christian  sense  of 
honour,  how  it  sent  men,  because  of  measureless 
benefit  received,  into  every  sphere  and  relation, 
with  the  impulse  to  recognise  obligation  and 
to  meet  it.  Comparing  this  vast  new  force  to 
steam,  we  showed  how  it  enhanced  common 
obligations  and  widened  the  sense  of  obligation. 
But  there  is  a  further  and  immensely  important 
element.  We  have  seen  our  common  flowers 
trying  to  grow  in  an  unkindly  northern  clime, 
and  again  amid  the  blaze  of  the  southern  sun 
have  we  seen  them  starring  the  pastures  of 
Switzerland  and  Palestine.  In  numbers,  in 
profusion  of  blooms,  in  perfect  form  and  colour, 
those   flowers    seemed    like    a    fresh    discovery. 


EPILOGUE  241 

And  so  the  Spirit  of  Christ,  working  in  human 
nature,  is  creating  fresh  sensibilities,  subtle  sym- 
pathies, perceptions  of  obligation,  horizons  of 
interest,  ideal  ardours.  They  come  unnoticed, 
now  from  lowly  lives  made  noble  by  con- 
secration, now  from  simple  men  immersed  in 
practical  duties  but  living  the  life  of  faith — 
General  Gordons,  George  Miillers,  Florence 
Nightingales — now  from  sickbeds,  and  anon 
from  the  high  places  of  duty  and  responsibility. 
These  exceptional  risings  of  the  human  spirit 
well  up  and  flow  on  and  disappear,  but  they  raise 
the  general  level.  And  this  enlarging  sense  of 
obligation,  this  widening  area  of  mutual  service, 
is  having  results  far  richer  and  fuller  than  we 
realise.  Barriers  are  breaking  down.  Human 
intercourse  is  increasing.  Each  nation  is  dis- 
covering its  peculiar  riches  for  the  good  of  all. 
The  sense  of  common,  intellectual,  social  and 
moral  interests,  of  common  human  service,  of 
a  trusteeship  for  the  less -favoured  nations,  is 
limiting  the  private  interests  of  kings,  discount- 
ing dynastic  rivalries,  and  creating  a  growing 
sense  of  the  impossibility  of  war. 

Ay,  but  what  of  rights,  individual  rights,  class 
rights?     Is  not  Christianity  the  religion  of  the 

Q 


242  EPILOGUE 

capitalist?  Men  have  very  short  memories. 
The  first  successful  stand  in  Scotland  for  the 
rights  of  the  people,  was  made  under  inspira- 
tion of  Christianity,  for  the  rights  of  conscience 
as  against  James  and  Charles.  Puritanism 
achieved  the  first  great  instalment  of  our  civil 
rights  in  England.  None  can  doubt  the  pre- 
eminence of  the  Christian  spirit  in  the  early 
reforms  of  the  century.  It  is  to  malign  a 
religion  having  such  a  record  to  speak  thus. 
The  religion  of  Christ  is  the  patrimony  of  no 
single  class,  but  of  all.  And  with  whatever 
limitations  and  defects,  arising  from  individual 
unworthiness,  it  steadily  works  for  the  good  of 
all.  Even  in  those  matters  especially  attracting 
attention  at  this  time — the  relation  of  capital 
to  labour,  the  adequate  remuneration  of  labour 
— the  results  which  we  deplore  are  in  no  sense 
owing  to  Christianity,  but  to  the  exclusion  of 
Christianity  from  the  commercial  and  industrial 
sphere.  Political  economy  was  to  govern  this 
whole  region  on  principles  with  which  religion 
was  declared  to  have  nothing  to  do.  Not  re- 
ligion, but  the  theoretical  separation  of  religion 
from  one  sphere  of  human  life,  produced  the 
difficulties  with  which  we  have  to  contend. 


EPILOGUE  243 

And  all  through,  in  innumerable  instances, 
the  Christian  spirit  in  renewed  men  has  been 
abating  the  severity,  and  obviating  the  worst 
consequences  of  this  seemingly  infallible  theory. 
While  relief  has  come  and  a  change  has  been 
passing  over  social  problems,  just  because  men 
like  Mr.  Ruskin  have  insisted  on  man  beine 
viewed  as  a  whole,  have  insisted  on  the  in- 
troduction of  those  moral  and  religious  factors 
which  enter  into  the  true  end  of  man,  and 
which  the  ruling  scheme  of  social  science  ignored. 

One  thing  is  true,  Christianity  will  take  no 
partisan  view  for  one  class  against  another;  it 
will  not  bind  itself  to  any  one  party  in  transitory 
social  disputes.  It  stands  above  all,  that  it  may 
bring  a  larger  justice  into  the  life  of  all,  abolishing, 
so  far  as  its  influence  extends,  mere  prescriptive 
rights  which  have  no  real  foundations.  And 
basing  right  on  service  as  a  principle  which  holds 
through  the  whole  domain  of  right,  we  have  an 
absolutely  simple  rule  capable  of  immediate  ap- 
plication, proceeding  on  tangible  grounds,  which 
can  be  measured  and  weighed,  and  promising  a 
just  solution.  In  this  foundation  of  real  right,  too, 
we  have  not  only  the  basis  of  a  present  settle- 
ment,  but    whenever   necessity  arises,  a  ground 


244  EPILOGUE 

for  readjustment.  And  here  too  Christ,  by  His 
whole  view  of  life,  by  inspiring  His  followers 
with  a  sense  of  the  true  proportions  of  life  and  its 
healthful  aims,  assists  in  regulating  the  relative 
value  of  service,  and  helps  to  keep  in  ascendency, 
the  worthy,  and  not  the  lighter  and  more  trivial 
elements  of  the  community.  Since,  too,  they 
are  members  of  the  same  humanity  who  are 
engaged  in  those  diverse  services,  the  tendency 
of  the  Christian  spirit  is  to  break  down  the 
excessive  barriers  of  distinction  (while  recognis- 
ing real  differences),  and  to  equalise  the  human 
lot.  In  one  week  some  years  ago,  I  was  in  a 
great  popular  park  in  an  English  city,  and  in 
the  policies  of  a  Scotch  duke.  The  people's  park 
was  ablaze  with  elaborate  floral  device  and  rich 
colour.  Empty,  and  half-empty  borders,  showed 
the  shrunken  state  of  the  nobleman.  This  refined 
pleasure  had  passed  from  the  exclusive  possession 
of  the  Dukes,  to  the  common  possession  of  the 
Demos.  The  peculiar  advantages  in  former 
times  of  the  classes,  are  now  the  privileges  of 
the  masses.  In  Trafalgar  Square  they  have  a 
gallery,  surpassing  all  private  collections ;  in  the 
British  Museum  a  library  and  collected  treasures, 
unequalled  in  the  world. 


EPILOGUE  245 

This  IS  more  than  justice  in  the  bare  and 
rigorous  sense.  These  are  outcomes  of  a  larger 
sense  of  right,  what  is  owing  not  merely  for 
specific  service  but  to  the  human  nature  which 
men  wear,  the  faculties  with  which  they  are  en- 
dowed, the  possibilities  which  lie  within  their 
reach.  Abolish  inequality  utterly  by  a  policy  that 
disregards  differences  of  service,  reducing  all  to  a 
dead  level,  and  you  abolish  this  give  and  take, 
these  higher  and  subtler  impulses  that  are  the 
finest  fruit  of  a  spiritually  cultivated  personality. 

With  very  much  left  to  write,  we  must  draw  to 
a  close.  Might  we  add  a  word  to  the  Christian 
reader  ?  We  have  a  work  before  us,  which  will 
drive  us  in  upon  Christ  and  the  resources  of  the 
Holy  Spirit.  Only  divine  power  can  enable 
Christian  men,  to  live  up  to  the  height  of  their 
message  and  their  opportunity.  Let  us  turn  from 
the  subsidiary  tasks  and  ceremonial  elements,  to 
the  present  living  responsibilities  of  the  sons  of 
God.  Let  us  continue  in  the  bondage  of  no  mere 
traditional  views,  but  verify  them  afresh  through 
prayerful  study  of  the  Word  of  God.  Let  the 
living  Christ,  dwelling  richly  within  you,  in  all 
wisdom,  make  His  own  truth  a  transfiguring 
present  reality,  in  which  duty  lies  clear,  through 


246  EPILOGUE 

which  we  are  led  out  to  discern  the  real  issues  of 
the  hour,  the  practicable  ideals  of  the  coming 
time.  *  He  that  overcometh  and  keepeth  My 
works  unto  the  end,  to  him  will  I  give  power  over 
the  nations  .  ,  .  even  as  I  received  from  My 
Father.  And  I  will  give  him  the  morning  star. 
He  that  hath  an  ear,  let  him  hear  what  the  Spirit 
saith  unto  the  churches.' 


FINIS 


Edinburgh  :  Printed  by  T4  and  A.  Constable. 


